


connective tissue

by brightly_brightly



Category: Person of Interest (TV)
Genre: BDSM, Bear - Freeform, Exhibitionism, F/F, Feelings, Gay Sex, Harold is scandalized, Lesbians, Masturbation, Mild S&M, Shaw is a nerd, Spanking, Sub!Shaw, They are so in love, a lil bit of s&m, a lot of references to spanking, but in a SHOOT way, butt stuff, consensual rough play, discussions of monogamy, dom/sub dynamics, gay Root, kind of, kink play, mostly headcanon and and raunchy sex, puns, slightly kinky
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-09
Updated: 2016-01-13
Packaged: 2018-04-19 21:24:18
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 14
Words: 50,724
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4761554
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/brightly_brightly/pseuds/brightly_brightly
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"In a world where you can always find something to die for, Root gives you everything to live for."</p><p>Root and Shaw, feelings and sex. This started out as me wanting an excuse to write the line "If you want that, you're gonna have to do better than pancakes and light bondage" and it just sort of... evolved.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. the deer

**Author's Note:**

> Multi-chap headcanon/musing fic with some sex scenes. My attempt to explore how I think Shaw sees the world and particularly her relationship with Root. Some elements need revising, but it's complete and will be posted one chap every few days. Thanks for reading!!

Sometimes you find Root folded up on the edge of your wide living room windowsill, with her forehead pressed up against the glass, staring out at god knows what. Sometimes, if she doesn't notice you intruding on her moment, you stand and watch her, drinking in the way her hair falls in soft waves around her shoulders, her delicately crossed ankles, the angle of her jawline. She'll perch there, completely still, just gazing out at the building across from yours with a forlorn look on her face, like someone's melancholy, abandoned child. 

When this happens, you tend to roll your eyes, march over, and take her slender, pale hands in yours: you pull her up and into you, away from whatever dark void she's witnessing or projecting. She always comes easily, obediently, and lets you distract her however you see fit. 

Sometimes you tease her, "hey Eeyore, where's my perky psycho today?"

Other times, you go sit beside her and you're silent together. 

If anyone understands Root's silences, it's you. 

You have your own silences, after all. It's only by some stroke of luck or nature that the two of you have managed to connect at all, despite your competing forces of chaos and quiet.

You may not be much of a talker, but you are a thinker. And when it comes to thinking about Root, and yourself, and the overlap between the two of you, you realize pretty early on that the only way you can really understand it is through nature. Feelings aren't your thing, never will be, but animals... you can do animals. You can relate to dogs and foxes and really any wild (especially predatory) creatures. In fact, the less language something has, the better chance there is that you're going to understand it. Which is why, when it comes to you and Root, you resort to trolling your memories for interactions with the rest of the world that can help you make some... sense... of this thing you're doing, this life you're weirdly building together.

There's one instance you keep coming back to:

It's the early 2000's and you're on a short leave with nowhere to go, one October, three years into your Marines career. some of the boys are stuck on base and at loose ends as well. Maybe it's not October, maybe it's Thanksgiving, you forget now. They talk you into going deer hunting with them- you've never shot anything that wasn't a person or a target before, and you're curious, so you agree. 

You and three buddies and a cooler of beer end up squatting in a rickety elevated blind in the middle of the some stretch of woods. You're not sure the beer is such a brilliant idea, and the salt lick not too far from you stinks of cheating, but this is how it's done, you suppose.

After three hours of freezing their asses off, the guys distract themselves with the usual collection of dirty stories. You throw in a comment now and then (usually a reminder that something they're claiming to have done is medically impossible). For the most part, your eyes never leave your scope. The murmur of your companions slips out of your consciousness. You're the only one who notices the doe in the distance, nervously picking her way out of the saplings at the farthest edge of the field. 

She is young, you guess, long legged and pale. Maybe still a fawn. You can't really tell. Her ears twitch and her large soft eyes roam the clearing. She takes a tentative step toward the salt lick. Her haunches are slim, not muscular. Her flanks are under-developed and you suspect that if you got closer, it wouldn't be hard to spot her ribs under her coat. Her head seems almost too big for her long neck. 

There's something about her that broadcasts fragility. It trips some unknown instinct in you, As you watch her wobble closer and closer to the certain death, you want, fiercely, to protect her, to prevent your half drunk friends from filling her trembling body with hot lead. You think about firing wild, making a sound. But that's not how this game is played.

You make it quick for this poor animal, a single shot. She's dead before she can jump in surprise.

You get a congratulatory round of shots that night. But you don't feel good about this kill... You don't feel bad either. 

Seven or maybe eight years later, you're not a marine anymore. You're not black ops anymore. You're not even (officially) alive anymore. You're a different kind of hunter now. In a dark turn of events, you find yourself freshly unemployed, following a lead to a hotel room, and talking to this woman who is supposedly an associate of Cole's. She has large brown eyes and light brown hair. She's gracefully long-limbed- like a ballerina. You catch her eyes tracking your every motion, darting up and down the length of your body as you drop your coat on the coffee table and pace toward a sound you hear in the bathroom. 

It's not until you're tasered and ziptied to a rolling chair, and she's sort of picking her way around the room, preparing to torture you, that you realize, in your semi-fried brain state, that she kind of moves like that deer edging its way into a clearing. It's not nervous movement, per se, but not nearly as careless as her annoying perkiness would have you believe. There's something wild and unsure about this woman.

You tell Harold you've found your next hobby and you're not sure if you want to end her or... something else.

Some nights later in a warehouse, you could kill her. You should kill her. You don't kill her. She stands with a pistol wavering in Harold's direction, probably intent on bringing him down. But she's pale and thin and unhinged and her soft wide eyes aren't looking for sanctuary or salt, they're looking for answers. The wildness of her voice and that psychotic vulnerability unlock that instinct that you thought you dropped with your first deer. It's hot and demanding inside of you. Your job is to protect Harold. But this woman... she's something else.

So you fire wide and clip Root's shoulder, not even a center mass shot. She crumples to the floor with a spray of blood and a dramatic wail of anguish.

Payback for the tasering, you figure.

Months after you shoot her, Root breaks into your loft and kidnaps you. This, she decides, counts as the beginning of your relationship. It is a relationship you are dragged, literally, forcibly dragged, into. You get inundated with uninvited touches and innuendo. You could try to shut her up with a punch, or ignore her until she left. Instead you roll your eyes and banter back with witty rejections to her advances. 

Somewhere the banter becomes second nature. It's less a "get the fuck off me" and more a friendly fire sort of exchange. Not long after your working relationship stabilizes, Root offers you a repeat of the one time fuck fest that happened in the CIA safehouse.

No mistakes there. It was probably the hottest ten hours of your life, even including that two day leave you had in Budapest, in your first year as a Marine. Root was all wanton gasps and wet, arching, searing, desire. Her mouth was hot and demanding, her fingers harsh and gentle all at once. You were undone completely, over and over. 

Which is why you don't bother making a show of resistance when she follows you home one night, traipsing happily by your side in silence (sometimes, it's like no matter what you do, she enjoys just being around you, it's stupid. You could be installing plumbing and she'd want to tag along and watch you). At the door to your building you stop and give Root a quick once over: she's tilting forward expectantly, with her hands stuffed in her coat pockets. She tips her head and says,

"Well, Sameen, are you going to invite me in?"

"No." You lie, flatly, unlocking the door and tugging her in behind you. "Do you even have a home of your own to go to?"

Root shrugs, "I sleep wherever She decides."

This statement makes you more unhappy and unsettled than you'll ever admit. You blame the discomfort on the close quarters of the elevator you've just stepped into, that and the way she's managing to grope your ass for two floors without getting her fingers broken.

"So you thought you'd follow me back to my place, do some couch surfing?"

"I was just enjoying a walk and some conversation."

"We didn't have a conversation."

"But you brood so eloquently." She gives you the most awkward wink in the history of awkward facial expressions. You almost laugh.

"ugh. shut. UP." you say instead, "let's just do this ok?"

"By 'this' you mean...?"

"Sex, Root. Let's just have sex and maybe can the verbal foreplay."

"Oh. ok," and with that she bends down, right in the middle of the service elevator, and kisses you for eight floors. She waits for you to open your mouth before sliding her tongue in, and when she does, all coherent thoughts leave your body. You almost don't make it to the doors of your loft. And once you get in, you almost don't make it to the bed.

But then you're on the bed, and Root's tugging your boots and jeans off and laughing when your concealed switchblade clunks to the floor. She grins, her teeth sharp and almost feral in the moonlight. 

"Always prepared," she murmurs as you pull your shirt off and slide out of your bra. 

Root presses the length of her body into you as her hands busy themselves, one hand pinning your wrists over your head, the other wreaking havoc down your breasts, pinching and stroking and teasing a trail from one nipple to the other, across your stomach, and finally, finally, settling hard and fast between your legs.

Root's fingers find you wet, already, and she works you up with firm, deep strokes. She kisses you, hard and fierce. After the way she took the lead that first time (and that she always flirts with you), you'd figured Root was probably pretty dominant in bed. You're not wrong, you realize as she's pinning you to the mattress, restraining your wrists, and fucking you. Somehow the way she controls the kiss seems to be her most overt way of dominating you. Root's tongue strokes inside your mouth in perfect sync with the rhythm of her fingers stroking between your legs. It's deep and wet and searing and wonderful.

"Open for me," she commands, between kisses and occasional bites. You spread your legs, you feel yourself relaxing, opening wider for her as she slides two, then three, searching fingers deep into you. Root grins down at you as she curls her fingers, looking for your g-spot.

"You're so delectable when you're all turned on like this."

you laugh, "shut up and fuck me"

Root leans in and bites your neck, almost hard enough to break skin, you gasp and clench hard around her fingers.

"Did you say please?" she breathes into your mouth.

You must say please after that because she starts fingering you in earnest. Your hips rise up and pleasure flares at every nerve ending. Root is a hard, determined, merciless fuck. She pumps in and out of your slick, wet heat. Root's fingers go so deep inside you, you imagine you can feel her touch echoing all the way at the base of your spine. Root smiles, softly, at you, as she thrusts, deep and fast and hard. It's that smile that pushes you over the edge, the impish curl of her lip... Your first orgasm rushes you, your second drowns you, your third exhausts you, and your fourth has you outright begging for her to let up.

She smiles wickedly. "Is it time for me to use my mouth now?"

You grumble. "When do I get to fuck you?"

Root pats your cheek patronizingly, "when you've earned it."

"And when's that supposed to be?"

Root rolls you over and straddles the back of your thighs. Her hand slides down to your ass. She squeezes one cheek, appreciatively, before landing a sharp smack on you. You glance back at the kinky little smirk on her face. 

"Don't move unless I tell you to," She smacks you twice more, a little harder and more purposefully each time. You grin. It's gonna be that kind of party...

She leans over you, pressing your chest and face into the mattress as she bites, assertively, on your shoulder, "and I'll let you know when it's your turn."


	2. instincts

You pretend, steadfastly, that this change in your character is not happening- that the overwhelming and incriminating protective instinct that arises around Root is some kind of a demon that only takes over your body at night, and on stake outs, and any time you're alone together for more than five minutes. 

She has the audacity to call what you're doing a courtship, and you threaten to shoot her again. 

Despite the endless banter, you know there's something about Root, somewhere underneath all her lying and tasering, two-gun-wielding hijinks, and sexual-harassment bravado, there's some ineffable part of her that just radiates fragility. Sometimes you think that under her shiny, glossy-haired, winsome-smile surface there might be an entirely other person, one with a thousand cracks in their soul, all carefully obscured with wit and beauty and a kaleidoscope of personalities. You catch glimpses of these cracks when she leaves negative spaces in a conversation, silences around the memory of Hanna, when she stares out your windows, when the Machine displeases her, or when she talks about your time with Samaritan to other people if she doesn't know you can hear. Her lip wobbles and her voice thins out, a thousand shadows seem to rise behind her dark eyes. The tells are almost imperceptible, but you know Root, and you see them. Then, you see a fleeting side of her that is disturbingly vulnerable. It triggers your protective instinct again, hardcore. You can feel the tense shift in your body. That vulnerability, you decide, belongs solely to you and falls under your protection. 

As a result, you punch harder, aim truer, and fight fiercer when you're with Root. You try not to to treat her like a child but sometimes you have to tug her back from a metaphorical or actual ledge, unsure of who she scares more in those moments- herself or you. Sometimes you find yourself pulling her, hard, by the sleeve or by the collar or one time by the straps of a backpack. It's always up to you to drag her away from whatever new hail of bullets, explosion, fire, or sparking electrical storm beckons her. 

You know, intellectually, that Root can more than take care of herself. She has dragged you out of certain death scenarios. Root has bled for you and undergone torture without giving you up. Root has stood beside you, unflinching in the face of gunfire (she has even groped your ass, frequently, mid shoot-out). Root drove a fedex truck full of C4 into a Samaritan facility to rescue you. She is the one who sat by your bed while your body (and your mind) stitched itself back together. You awoke, on the first day of Freedom, to Root, hovering protectively over your helpless body. She was strong for you, for all those months when you couldn't bear to be touched, couldn't leave the safehouse, couldn't even look at your guns. She helped you walk again, brought you steaks, and when angry tears trickled down your face because you couldn't remember a word or make your hands move a certain way, Root was the one who silently wiped the tears, and the anger, away. You know she is so much more than some wide-eyed, fragile thing you need to defend. 

But she's stupid about herself. 

Like that dumb-ass deer, wandering toward sudden death, she doesn't think about her own safety or wellbeing beyond how it relates to the Machine. Root cares about the Machine infinitely more than you think she should. You resent her God for that, and you make your opinion pretty clear, too. You might work numbers at the Machine's behest, but somehow, somewhere along the line, just a shade ahead of protecting the rest of the team, looking out for Root has become your first priority.

You sit next to Root at a diner, one night after your rescue but before the total destruction of Samaritan. You never sit across from each other any more (she's not to be trusted when it comes to her feet and your lap). You're wolfing down pancakes (the bacon and eggs and side of hash browns are long gone). She's nursing a coffee and shamelessly inching her hand up your thigh.

"You know," you say with your mouth full (because it grosses her out and that amuses you), "all that coffee's gonna leech the calcium out of your body 'n give you brittle bones."

She laughs. "It's cute that you think I'm going to live long enough for my coffee consumption to catch up with me."

You lower your fork and reach under the table to grip her hand where it's dancing on your leg. You squeeze, hard. She flinches.

"Don't make jokes."

When Root sees that you're serious she doesn't say anything.

"Root. You're not allowed to risk your life whenever you want anymore. You don't die in some kamikaze mission. You don't get gunned down working a number. You get old and you get brittle bones from drinking too much coffee. And then you die, when I say you can."

"You're saying I need your permission to die?"

You shrug. "I have to get your permission to cum, it seems only fair."

Root sputters into her coffee.

"And order something to eat besides a goddamn salad. Have you ever heard of protein?"


	3. conversations

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks evryone for the kind comments. More chaps to come soon.

In November, about a year after the fall of Samaritan, the Machine keeps Root sky-hopping all over the globe, stamping out cyber fires and techno uprisings. She goes back to living out of one small bag, leaving all the detritus of her life scattered around the apartment (which is also where you live, for security purposes. For the mission). You want to go with Root, but there are so many numbers to work and new associates to train. You stay in New York and freeze your butt off. You sleep on the couch because being in bed without Root now annoys you. You stare at the tiny camera on your laptop, wondering if Root can see you from wherever she is. 

Reese pokes your elbow every time he finds you scowling into a cup of coffee. Which feels like it's practically every morning.

"She'll be back soon," he says, snagging the last glazed donut from the box Fusco brought.

"Who, Root?" You say, as though there's someone else whose beanie you're wearing and whose shower gel you're using and to whom you send a classy as fuck dirty picture every night at midnight EST, even if you're not sure she can even see them.

"Root can do whatever she wants," you slurp your coffee, "I'm cool."

Reese flicks a smirk at you. You have never felt further from cool. Even though he's the one with a smudge of sugar on his chin. You're the one with a case of weird clingy... concern. John pats your forearm with two fingers, respecting your need for minimal physical contact while still offering a friendly touch.

"I'm pretty sure if Root had her way, the only thing she'd be doing is you." 

It's the dirtiest thing John Reese has ever said and you're almost shocked by it. But he has a point. Root's absences aren't by choice. You have to live with them, even if it's immensely annoying when she disappears for weeks and sometimes months on end without warning. 

 

When she rematerializes, it's six days later, just as you're dragging a perp into the back of a white unmarked van. You cuff the perp to a ulock on the wall and climb into the driver's seat, only to find the passenger side occupied by a half-asleep, extremely pale and jet lagged little hacker. Root smiles at you with her just for Shaw, half-condescending, half-doting, entirely hopeful smile. Before she can piss you off with a snotty comment about your fighting skills or an overtly sexual quip, you catch her eye. It's been six weeks. Neither of you says anything for a moment, the warm pulse of silence between you is enough. 

"Together again," your brain whispers, and you feel like a tiny iron cage in your chest, just south of your sternum, has been broken open. That sharp, pinching tension invoked by Root's absence disappears. Your body feels off-balance if you're not near enough to protect her (you've given up trying to understand this. It just is).

"Miss me." she says.

"No," you retort, but you're sort of nodding yes and reaching for her before the word is even fully formed.

Even as you embrace, your hands dance across her body, checking for injuries, bandages, breaks, sore places, anything you can tend to. She realizes what you're trying to do and grins against your cheek.

"I love it when you go all field hospital on me, Shaw."

"You shut up." You order softly, kissing her so she has no choice but to obey.

Sometimes, Root is a fragile, fumbling, wide-eyed creature, wobbling her silly self into danger- and you're her idiot huntsman, bringing down everything else in your path to assure her safety. Sometimes, though, Root is a hurricane. Like when you get home and she pins you to the mattress; her eyes gleam and she owns your mouth with her lips and tongue. Root sweeps into your loft. Root changes the current of a casual conversation with a single word. Her sharp grin clouds your vision with promises. Root rains kisses on you, and you can only dodge so many before they overtake you. Root floods you with desire. Root billows through your bloodstream. Root litters your skin with the debris of her lust- teethmarks, scars, bruises, rope burns, welts, scratches, rubbed raw places, handprints. Root leaves you wrecked and wet and gasping for more.

Root storms through darkened hallways with blazing pistols and a tinned voice in her ear. She has no qualms about jamming a needle into your neck, smashing the trust in your relationship if only to keep you safe. Root is completely twisted and cruel when it comes to people who get in her way, but she is unflinchingly gentle with you, even when you don't want her to be. You have seen Root with brick dust in her hair and a filthy smirk on her face, hauling a thoroughly incapacitated perp from a collapsing building. You know for a fact that when you were a prisoner, she tried to tear the world down to find you- threatening her God, flying solo, snapping necks, burning, burning, burning, with the kind of stormy fury you've only ever read about.

Root is delicate: Root is dangerous. 

You don't know how to understand these vastly different parts of the woman you're with- the careless creature and the unstoppable force of nature. You want both parts, as close to you as possible at all times. One, to save from destruction at all costs- and the other to destroy you, just a little bit, from time to time. You decide it's some trick of biochemistry that has rendered you this susceptible to Root. You don't know how to tell her what you want with her, or why you want it- but you do try to show her.

You watch Root, sometimes, when she sleeps. Her mouth goes slack and she often drools on herself. It's a little bit disgusting, but you still kiss her and push your tongue into her mouth in the morning when she wakes up. Root in the morning might just be your favorite thing (besides Bear). She's sleepy and disoriented. She makes whiny little waking-up noises and lets you climb on top of her without any protest. She wraps an arm around you and sighs happily when your body settles and sinks into hers. She stretches the whole length of her spine as you tease slow, deep orgasms out of her. Mornings are good. Mornings take away the frantic tension of your protective instincts and the sting of Root's raw power. 

One rare, lazy morning, Root captures your hand and plays with your fingers while you catch your breath. She dawdles over the faded, gnarled scar that jumps across the four top knuckles of your left hand.

"Have I seen these before?"

"They're old."

"Marines? or before that?"

"Day I... left my residency program. I punched out the windshield of a sedan. And the windows."

"Tell me about it."

You're happy to leave your explanation at that, but Root is lying naked next to you, watching your face with expectation. The skin of her cheeks and neck and chest is still flushed and sweaty from the sex you've just had- her bent knees angle toward you, not even covered by a sheet. Her inner thighs are still shimmering with evidence of your persistent attention. Her rare and unguarded openness is a reminder that she's sharing parts of herself with you that she's never shared with anyone else. You see no reason why you can't at least try to do the same. 

You draw a breath and give her a sliver of yourself.

"One night, during my second year at NY Pres, I was working an oncology rotation. It was late, like nine, ten o'clock. I finished my shift and the director of the residency program paged me to this dank little conference room. All the lights were off except two computer monitors..."

You can still see that room now. Its cold, blue tint has never really been far from your mind. Windowless, dull, the end of the road.

"He sat me down, told me I'm technically brilliant, but, I wasn't cut out to be a doctor. My attendings, they'd noticed my lack of empathy, my lack of fear for a patient's life, my..."

"Emotional colorblindness?" Root supplies.

"Yeah. Call it that. Anyway he took me to task on it. On how I'm... different. Said I knew the DSM, I probably knew what I was all along. I never should have been in med school. 'You'll never be a doctor,' he told me like he was doing us all a favor."

You remember the chill that crept into your blood, numbed your muscles and nerves, when he said, "you probably diagnosed yourself in your first year," because you had. You knew, and he knew. You remember feeling like you were drowning in that conversation. Like the shards of humanity you'd tried so hard to grasp for yourself had been swiftly knocked out of your hands. "You'll never be a doctor," those words haunted you- still haunt you.

"You've seen my file. You know I got a perfect score on my math SAT. Graduated top of my classes in high school and college. I was in the top 2% of people who took the MCAT the year I did. I did internships in college. I destroyed med school, just... put in longer hours, worked harder than any- -- I didn't bother with a life outside of becoming a doctor. I thought being a--- being what I am was such an advantage. Y'know, not getting emotionally involved or afraid or anything. Cool head, clear eyes, empty heart."

Root nods at you but you wonder if she really understands. 

"Turns out, most people want a doctor who might mess up but will care if they do, but not a doctor who won't mess up but won't care either way. All that work, though, kinda sucked to see it amount to nothing. So. I rolled up my stethoscope and my coat and I left. And I punched the lights out of the first car I saw, and the windshield out of the second. Broke the glass and almost broke my wrist until I stopped feeling angry. Twenty stitches, on that hand."

Within a month you had enlisted in the Marines. Powered through basic and special ops training. Nobody had questioned your motives or your scars, then.

Root studies you. You can see her scrunching her forehead and mouth, fighting to keep some expression off her face, though you can't tell what. She keeps running the pad of her thumb over your knuckles. 

"I never told anyone that. Don't make me regret it."

Root blows out a frustrated puff of breath, then her eyes soften.

"You know, having a personality disorder doesn't mean there's something wrong with you."

"Yes it does," you tug your hand away, "I'm a sociopath."

Root says nothing. You wish, for the first time in your life, that you could make her understand what it's like, what you mean when you say that. 

"I can never feel things. At least, not like other people. Even if I wanted to."

"I don't think that matters. You still care."

"Not really... I care because I choose to, not because there's some warm tingly feeling in my chest when I do the right thing. Or the thing that matters. I'm human, Root, but at the end of the day I'm not quite a person."

Root shakes her head. "Is that what you think?"

"It's what I know. I'm a functional human, but I don't have the same qualities or instincts that you have, that Harold has.... I'm not... I'm not like a person."

"Are you saying that the woman who got a perfect score on her SAT and was top of her class through college and med school, was a brilliant doctor, soldier, and assassin- she's not a person? The woman who sacrificed herself for her team? Who calls Gen once a week just to 'check in'? Who-"

"I was only able to do those things because of what I am. Don't forget that."

"Oh, Sameen. I would very much like to flay every last man and woman who ever made you think there's something wrong with the way you are."

"It wouldn't make a difference." you tell her, "It wouldn't change the truth... and it wouldn't make me feel like I love you."

She goes quiet again. Wrestles your hand back to her chest and holds it tight. You roll your eyes,

"That doesn't seem wrong to you?"

"Honestly?"

"Yeah, Root. Honestly."

"Well, then, honestly, Shaw, I think you're hot and talented and ruthless. And those are the reasons- well, some of the reasons- we have such ... explosive... chemistry. But I love you because of who and what you are. Exactly how you are. Unaltered. Even if being exactly who and what you are means you don't feel anything back."

You can't help it if your body goes a little rigid at this. Love. That's a dark and unknown territory. Root doesn't seem phased, though, she just brings your hand to her mouth. and playfully gnaws at your knuckles like some goofy human puppy.

"Don't overthink this, Shaw. I don't need you to hit 'reply all.' As long as you're ok with it, what we have right now is what I want, exactly as is... As long as it's good enough for you."

"yeah, Root," you clear your throat and say, "you're more than good enough for me."

You roll over and draw her into one of those lingering, sloppy kisses she enjoys so much.

"You know, I'd do anything for you," she murmurs when you come up for air.

"That's kind of what I'm afraid of."


	4. the not so feels

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> slightly out of character Harold, unsolicited acts of cuddling, S&M vagaries, sexy times, feeeeeeelings.
> 
> I shamelessly lifted some sexy talk from the L Word.

You know Root loves you, even if you aren't entirely sure what it means. You know you... like her more than other people and at least as much as Bear. You'd take a bullet for her again, but you've taken a lot of bullets for a lot of people.

You're pretty sure you can't match Root's feelings for you, so you give her what parts of yourself you can: the details left out of your file. You teach her the refrain of your favorite Persian song from when you were small, you tell her stories no one else knows, you confess to her the gruesome index of what Samaritan did to your body while you were their prisoner. You make her laugh with your vehement disapproval of ferrets and vegetarians. You don't try to hide a single one of your hang-ups or proclivities. You give Root the most nebulous and uncertain parts of your world, and she takes them silently, reverently, or sometimes with a playful smirk. 

In moments like the line at the grocery store or when you're watching her change the future just by typing strings of numbers, you know that Root means Something to you. 

She means more than justice and freedom or a good fight and marathon sex. She means something you're not sure you even have language for.

You want to make Root understand how she matters to you, but you know that in all the languages you do speak, there are no sufficient words. Instead of trying to talk your way into trouble, you make her eat real people food and sleep in the same place (your bed) every night. You buy a thick, fluffy pillow for her because your ratty, smushed ones hurt her neck (even if she never complains about it). Then you buy a new mattress, a really big one because sometimes you both need a lot of space at night. You make Root help you pick it out. You get a second key made for your loft and drop it in her bag when she's preoccupied with a laptop- you start hanging her coats and dresses and shirts in your closet. 

She basically has no say in the fact that she lives with you now. You drag her into it, just like she dragged you into that black escalade so long ago. You like the symmetry of that. 

You make sure you always have extra ammo for both of you, and that Root wears kevlar in the field. You pretend not to hear the distinctive sound of her footfall when she sneaks up on you because she gets a perverse thrill out of "surprising" you. You keep a dark chocolate bar in your bag, just for Root, just in case of some periodical emergency. You pry her away from the eternal demands of the Machine.

She fights you, sometimes.

"I can't sleep until this program is done running! I need these results," she'll snap, crumpled over her laptop after 34 hours awake.

You shrug and pick her up in a fireman's carry and drop her onto your bed. 

"Sleep," you order, landing a gentle smack on her ass to reinforce your words, "or no sex for you for a week." 

You don't remember how your relationship progressed from grudgingly not killing her to violently protecting her from a world of enemies to drawing her closer and protecting her from herself. 

It's a fair trade though: you do the protecting, and Root gives you mornings and nights and Saturdays and rainy Tuesday afternoons. She sneaks into your shower, she drinks all your coffee, she still flirts with you, obnoxiously, and makes you roll your eyes and (sometimes, grudgingly) laugh. She stands beside you, still, in the heat of gunfire. 

John smirks at you whenever he catches her groping you (which is a lot). 

"So do you buy her flowers and stuff?" he asks one day when you're out on a friendly ten mile run/ competition.

"Root hates flowers."

"What does she like then?"

"Mostly tasers. Boots. Classified files..." 

... Handcuffs, duct tape, tying you to random shit and leaving you there to figure out your own escape.... Snooping on your hardrive and 'accidentally' uncovering those hot photos of your butt that you definitely didn't plant there.

You win the run. Reese might have longer legs, but he doesn't have a hot nerdling waiting for him at home. 

Harold worries. He summons you to the station one afternoon in March.

"Ms. Shaw, please sit down," he says, swiveling away from his monitors and screens.

"What's up, Harold? New number?" 

Harold gives you a shifty look and shoves a cookie tin in your face. You take a handful. Chocolate-chocolate and butter pecan, must mean a serious conversation is on the way.

"I, ah, want to discuss something with you. Something regarding Root." 

"Oh," you don't mean to spray crumbs everywhere, but it happens anyway, "what did she do this time?" 

You off-handedly wonder if it's it's the kind of naughty hacker behavior you can work into a kinky sex game later.

"As I'm sure you've noticed by now, Root is somewhat psychologically fragile. She believes devoutly in the Machine, or at least, she did until it was unable or unwilling to prioritize you. After the trauma of your capture and the violence of your rescue, I think Root has become even more compromised. She cares very little about other people or much of anything beyond the scope of her work. She has had two priorities- the Machine, the god she served... and now you, the person she worships. I fear now that her relationship with the Machine has frayed, she may transfer some of that fervour into her affection for you, Ms. Shaw. "

"Why are you telling me this?"

"I worry that should anything go awry in your... complicated relationship with Root, she might become dangerously unhinged. The things she's capable of, the violence and destruction, the sheer moral abjection, not to mention the profound psychological damage it would do to her- I just want you to be aware. You are handling a very rare and very volatile element."

"What do you think I'm gonna do, Harold? Break up with her for Butch Cassidy down at the bank and make her go all Dark Willow on you guys?" 

The Buffy reference is lost on Finch. Just... Wasted.

"Ms. Shaw," he slips into that patronizing tone of his, "You and I both know that a relationship between a self-determined sociopath and an unbalanced techno-zealot could very likely end in tragedy. You need to be aware of-"

You can feel the blood rushing your ears and your molars grinding down in frustration as you listen to Harold ramble on.

"Of how much it's gonna hurt Root, when I do what all sociopaths do and mess with her head? You know, Harold, I'm pretty sure Root knows what she's doing. In a relationship, anybody can get hurt. In fact, someone is bound to. That's the breaks.  
And in my relationship, we could go down in flames together. Hell, Root'd probably light the fire... but... look, I know she can be fragile, I know she can be dangerous. I know she's powerful, cunning, zealous, and manipulative, and yeah, unspeakably volatile, but, Root's mine. And I chose to care about her. I follow through on that choice every day. I'm not going to hurt her or make her hurt herself or you or anyone who doesn't deserve it."

Harold has no response to that. You still kind of want to punch him, though.

"And frankly, it's not your business if I'm a sociopath or if Root's a technology-worshipping nerd. We do good work for you. For your machine. And when we go home at the end of the mission, what we have together is private." 

You don't know where all these words have come from. Relationship? Private? Home?? You're not a talker.

"I understand," Finch finally says, though somehow you doubt he does. His twisted face of discomfort makes you glad you spoke up. 

You shake the crumbs off you and stalk toward the exit.

"I'm sorry I interfered," Harold calls.

"Whatever. It makes a change of pace from arguing with Root about whether or not we should do a sex tape."

Harold gives you the owl eyes. Serves him fucking right.

You leave him to stew with that, but as you walk away you know he has some kind of. point. You have so many limits. and. Root does so much for you.

She kisses you hard for no reason and leaves you alone when you need space. She drives you wild in bed (and on couches, tables, motorcycles, minivans, helicopters, in the shower, on floors, against walls....). She texts you pictures of Bear on your particularly angry days. She never asks you to hold her (but you do it anyways, sometimes, because you can). She gives you full, rich moments that brightly flare out in your memory, moments that would have otherwise been spent staring down the scope of your sniper rifle or dodging bullets or sitting, alone, in your loft. 

You were content alone. But you're MORE content with Root.

Root gives you an already-warm place to crawl to in the dark, even if she does insist on leaving a sock graveyard at the bottom of the mattress, between the sheets. She freely gives you the lingering taste of her mouth and her skin, the lightness of her laughter, the earthy, heady aroma of her arousal, all the proud secrets of her body. In a world where you can always find something to die for, Root gives you everything to live for.

Even if sometimes- when she's three fingers deep inside of you, pushing and pulling, slowly tormenting you with her lips and tongue and you aren't allowed to come yet- you think she might kill you.

These thoughts settle like fallen leaves in your chest and you almost forget them. But then, you get home late that night, and you find a fresh six-pack of dark beer in the fridge, wedged in between your armory of grenades and C4 and Root's carton of heinous soy milk. You find her boots in uncharacteristically neat order next to the couch, and finally, you spot the woman herself, sprawled out on her stomach on your bed, drumming away on one of her laptops.

"Hi, Sweetie," she stops typing to offer you a warm smile as you discard your jacket and boots.

"Hey." 

You close in and ruffle your fingers through her silky, tangled hair. She butts her head up into your hand, ever playful. 

"What did Harry want this morning?"

"To meddle. Dude loves to put on his Ward Cleaver costume. I told him we're making a sex tape."

You can practically feel Root's ears perk up at this.

"We are?"

"No, Root, it's bad enough the Machine can hear us. I don't want it seeing us, too. Some things are meant to be private."

Root smirks and closes her laptop, setting it gently on the floor. She sits up and reaches for you, trailing her fingers up and down the sides of your legs. She gives the most obvious, dorky, side eye glance you have ever seen. Only Root can be so nerdy and so hot at the same time.

"What kinds of things, Sameen?" 

You step into her space and bend down until your mouth is level with her good ear. 

"The kinds of things I'm about to do to you."

Root grins. You push her down, until she's flat on her back on the mattress. You clamber upwards so you're straddling her hips. You tug at her shirt until she lifts her arms to let you pull it off. 

Root tries to flip you over and get on top, as she frequently does at about this point in the proceedings. When you keep her pinned under you, she raises an imperious eyebrow at you. 

"And just what are you up to, agent Shaw?"

You run your fingers from her sharp collar bones over to her shoulders, down her arms to her wrists, and back again. Your face betrays nothing. 

"I'm gonna make you come."

"Oh yeah? From up there?"

"From up here."

Root chuckles. You drop down so your elbows are on either side of her head. You kiss her cheek, then her jaw, then her neck. She shivers, but doesn't yield without a fight.

"Do you even remember how to be on top? When I'm not half asleep or sporting a gunshot wound?"

You slide two fingers under the shell of her bra and roll a nipple between them. She arches into your caress.

"I'm really good at improvising." 

You kiss her mouth, letting her set the pace of the kiss, your tongue warm and firm and insistent. You're so close to her throat that you can feel every moan and whimper and shaky breath. You let your fingertips play across her skin, light pressure tracking from the pulse point on her neck, down to her breasts. Root's breasts are small, but so are your hands. You get some good, solid groping in before dragging your nails down even further to skitter across her torso. Root wriggles and awkwardly sticks one arm behind her back, trying to unhook her own bra.

"Uh-uh," you reach behind her and pop the clasps, "I'll tell you when to take this off."

Root pulls her face back and guffaws. Literally guffaws at you. 

"Sweetie, you can top me all you want, but let's not forget who's in charge here."

You slip her bra off and lavish those pert breasts with kisses, darting your tongue out every so often to tease her nipples. She's right though, even you topping her on occasion doesn't undo your generally submissive status.

You feel Root's hand slide into your hair, tugging hard and guiding your head up until you have to face her.

"Who's in charge, Shaw?" She asks, half playful and half warning.

"You are," you answer, jutting your chin out proudly because being the submissive partner is nothing to be ashamed of. Especially when Root is the other half of the equation. 

"But just this once," you press on, "let me..." 

Root smiles softly at your persistence. She sighs and settles her head back into the pillows, relaxing her grip on your hair. You take this as permission to continue working your lips and tongue down her body, across planes of pale, sweet skin that tastes and smells so distinctly of Root. When you finally reach the waistband of her jeans, you somehow manage to unbutton them and slide them off, taking her panties along with them. You nip her inner thighs. You lick the soft rise of her stomach, just below her navel. You brush your thumbs in circles over her hip bones. You lick a fragile path down to the juncture of her thigh. Instead of continuing, though, you surge up and kiss her again, your tongues rolling together inside her mouth, deep and heady and so warm. Root sighs happily into your mouth. 

When you pull back, you trace the shell of her good ear with the tip of your tongue. You nip the lobe hard enough to make her breath catch.

"I'm going to lick you until you come in my mouth a thousand times," you whisper.

It's not often that you use your mouth on her, not when your fingers will do just fine. Maybe the promise shocks you both a little bit. You're certainly awed by how much thicker your own desire has made your voice. 

"Ok then," Root sighs.

You do your best. You bury your face between Root's smooth, narrow thighs. You roll your tongue up and down her labia, breathing in the heady aroma of her arousal, nosing up at the small, dusky thatch of hair. You lap her clit gently, but firmly. Root is so wet, and she tastes sweet and earthy and salty all at once. You decide to use your mouth more often. You keep your motions consistent until that small, hypersensitive part of her body jolts forward, ever so slightly. Then you know she's getting closer.

You can feel her legs tightening around you, her body writhing and squirming under you. When you look up, her eyes are fixed on you and that makes you hum low and deep in the back of your throat. The reverberations hit her and she gasps. You keep going, pressing down on her lower belly with one hand and reaching under her to grasp one ass cheek with the other. Root really likes that. Her whole body curls up toward you.

You lick and kiss and suck her until her arousal runs down your chin, and your ears overflow with her whimpers and hisses of pleasure. Your scalp is going to be scraped from her fingers digging into it, and you'll probably have a heel-shaped bruise on your shoulder, but this is so worth it. You lavish Root's clit with so much attention that you're practically making out with it. She comes once, then again, and a long, drawn-out third time until her legs twitch and she gently bats you away from her over-stimulated parts.

You wipe your face off on the back of your arm and crawl up the bed to flop down next to her. Her breath is all over the place. You grab her wrist- her pulse is all over the place too.

"So that wasn't a THOUSAND times, but we dented our record pretty well."

Root nods. 

"I can't remember the last time I came that hard."

"Yeah?" 

"You broke me with sex, Sameen. I may never be able to walk again. You'll have to carry me everywhere."

"No."

"Mmmm, then I'll be trapped here, alone. I'll have to get a cat to keep me company." 

"Root."

"I know, I know, no cats."

Root weaves her fingers between yours as a blissful silence overtakes you. You bring your free arm over and slip it around her. This is an unsolicited act of cuddling. You lay that way, tangled together, for several long, silent moments. You think Root might be asleep when she suddenly reaches for your belt buckle. You still her wrist.

"I'm good for now."

Root gives you her most incredulous eyebrow raise. You never turn down sex.

"You sure about that?"

"Yeah," you pull her toward you until her head is on your chest. Your blood is thrumming and eager: you could go for some reciprocal touching- but something about holding Root like this fills you with an other-worldly calm. All of the confusion and anger and noise of your outside life gets turned down, and all of the cool, restful, peacefulness of the moment gets turned up, ever so slightly.

"Sometimes-" you begin, unsure of where you're really going, "sometimes I might want to do something that's for you.... to make you feel good."

Root pushes her free hand underneath your tank top, fingertips skimming your abs.

"Did you do something bad?" She asks in a bright, playful note.

"No."

"Did you kidnap Bear? Oh! is there a body you want me to help you hide?"

"Please. I can dispose of my own kills. I'm not twelve."

Root's fingers dip below the waistband of your jeans. They are so close to where you want them.

"Root."

She pauses.

"When we have sex... You know maybe sometimes I'm ok with it being just about you." 

"I don't understand. Sameen are you being chivalrous? Because that's not really-"

You groan in frustration. "I just... don't expect a 'reply all' from you."

"I know that."

You close your eyes, satisfied that you've made your point.

Less than five minutes later, though, a still very much naked Root has taken advantage of your relaxed state and handcuffed you to the iron rungs of the headboard.

"Your altruistic streak turns me on." She informs you, dangling two different ball gags in front of your face. "Let's add it to our list of kinks."

You groan as your whole body warms and your pulse skyrockets, "Altruism isn't a kink, Root... ugh, the red one."

"I'm really touched that you'd want to make me come and come... and come like that," she coos, slipping the ball into your mouth and letting you adjust your jaw to it before fastening the strap behind your head.

"And now I think you deserve some payback, so you can feel equally touched," She scrunches her nose at you, "and maybe you'll get to come, later, if you're a really good girl." 

You swear you can feel your pupils expanding and your mind fogging up with desire as as Root rolls your tank top up and loops it behind your neck, licking her lower lip in anticipation as she exposes your breasts and abs. The power emanating from her is electric. Even after watching her soften and surrender to orgasm after orgasm, you're a little in awe of the energy rippling from her as she touches you. Maybe it's lust, maybe it's control, maybe it's some variation of love that's anchoring your bodies together. You don't know, but you sure as hell enjoy it.

Root keeps her touches agonizingly delicate as she plays with you, her willing captive. She grins when you can't quite resist the urge to wriggle closer, angling for some friction.

"Now, it's about time we did a little refresher course on basic S&M. Don't you think?"

You nod eagerly as she hauls a riding crop and one of her boxes of vibrators out from under the bed. 

At least you attempted the whole do-something-selfless-for-your-girlfriend thing before Root turned it into... whatever this is. Not that you're complaining.


	5. reciprocity: part one

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> set in the immediate aftermath of Samaritan, Shaw reflects on her relationship with Root and other things.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this is a chap i added in to the original work because i think shaw's recovery from her time with samaritan would influence her relationship with root. this is by far the most shaw-oriented chapter. would love your thoughts on whether or not it works with the rest of the narrative.
> 
> as always, thanks for reading and for all the lovely feedback.

Lust has a familiar pull. You know it in yourself, in the heaviness between your legs and the way your blood sings when you get to put your hands and mouth all over someone you want. You know it in others, the widening of pupils and shortening of breath. The way a touch lingers. Seduction is a familiar game and you can get down with playing it when you want a few orgasms. 

The things your body says to you around Root are nothing short of obscene. Her too intimate touches, her lingering wide-eyed stares, and her constant stream of innuendo condition you like a trained monkey. A look, a word, a particular angle of the sun against her face. These things catch and hold your attention. The pull of your desire for Root is a flood and you get swept away in it. You are weak for Root's fingers, her mouth. You lose your breath every time your body connects to hers. The games you play together are dangerous and unpredictable, and you've never wanted anything or anyone quite as badly as you want Root. To hold onto. To protect. To fuck. To follow around or try to evade, depending on the day. To ignore and roll your eyes at. To tease. To take care of. 

The first time you realize that, it's a little too late. 

You have your Root epiphany in an elevator shaft, as your gaze settles on a red override button twenty feet away. You know in that moment, that the only way you can have Root is to lose yourself. You take that chance.

The results of your gamble take a small eternity to come in. A fifteen-month eternity.

You lose yourself for a long time. Samaritan uses your body as a guinea pig for new torture regimens, your brain as a lab rat for new electroshock and drug treatments. The things you have done to people in the name of freedom and justice and boredom are pretty bloody, decidedly unclean. But Greer and Martine and their ring of heads wearing pale blue surgical masks... the things they do to you make you cry.

And that's all you can say about it. You cry and you lose yourself.

But Root finds you. Root with her unflinching self-destructive martyr complex and thirst for chaotic vengeance, Root with her quiet ways and constant presence. One minute you are convulsing from the residual effects of shock treatment in your tiny tin cell. The next minute, the lights go out- sensory deprivation again, you assume- but there's a lot of noise and a lot of smoke. Your cell door is blown open with an understated poof of exlposives and Root is there, a hallucination, you decide. Except, hallucinations aren't usually bleeding from a deep head wound and breathing heavily from running and pulling out an all-too-familiar looking syringe and trying to be smart ass by saying things like,

"I would have called first, but I didn't think you'd get cell service here."

Then you are unconscious. Then you are waking up, ash in your mouth and grit in your eyes, in what Finch later tells you is a safe house somewhere in North Jersey. When you do finally, fully wake up, your first waking-up without any narcotics in your body in almost a year, it is not Greer's face over you that you see. It's Root, asleep, squished up in a small armchair that has been pushed within touching distance of your bed. Her arms and legs are folded into her torso in a way that can't be comfortable, or good for her spine. Root's hair is darker than you remember and sooty and tangled. Her skin is paler than usual and she has deep shadow thumbprints under her eyes. Someone has cleaned up the bullet graze on her forehead and put a bandaid on it, but she has what looks like glass fragment cuts dotting her left cheek and the side of her head. Root has terrible morning breath and she's drooling onto her sleeve. You find yourself thinking that for the rest of your life, you will never see a sunset, a dog, an automatic weapon, a sleek Ferrari, or another human being as beautiful as Root, drooling on herself, the morning after saving your ass.

But you almost believe you would face torture again rather than tell her that. 

When she wakes up, she doesn't say anything. She stares at you, and stares and stares and stares. You know because you're staring right back. You weakly drag your arm up over your body and try to touch her face with your mostly numb fingers. She has to help you. She kisses the inside of your palm. It's too intimate, it's all too intimate. 

"Hey kid. Miss me between AI apocalypses?" you croak.

"Like a-"

"intestinal parasite?"

"heartbeat." she finishes quietly. You look away.

She lets you rest after that, lets you sleep for almost a whole day.

That first week back, you pretty much stay in your hospital bed. Root sits in her chair next to you and doesn't say a word. You might have to learn to walk again, Finch says on your second day awake. Root stares at the floor. You realize you can barely feel the weight of Bear, lying across your shins. "very minor spinal compression- light bruising- definitely impermanent" Finch tells you. 

"Full recovery" John says.

Root says nothing. Droplets of water land on the toe of her boot, but her profile is hidden from you by a wave of her hair. Root holds your hand. You let her. You remember, later, that you can shake her hand off if you want to and nothing bad will happen. Maybe it's the knowledge that you can tell Root not to touch you, after so many months of people and machines forcing all kinds of physical contact onto you in the most violent and intimate of ways, maybe it's knowing you can shake her off that makes you want to let her stay. You can say no, but, you can also say yes.

You spend a lot of time that first week just staring out the window or picking at the stitching on your wool blanket. Finch is aghast when one day you accidentally unravel almost an inch off the trim of the blanket without even noticing. You think, on that day, you almost see a smile on Root's face. She leans away from you and whispers something to Finch. You catch the words "manual dexterity" and "nervous system" from Root and "Daughters of the Revolution Handmade Afghan" from Finch and then a harsh "worth it, Harold" from Root. 

The next day there is a new, equally destructible, blanket at the foot of your bed. You're positive you catch Root smirking when you try to reach forward and pull it up over yourself.

By the middle of the second week back, you can sit up on your own, move your legs to the edge of the bed on your own, and press your feet into the floor. Root kicks off her boots so she's closer to your height and helps you take slow, excruciating steps. Eight feet away from the bed, eight feet back. You grip her arm tightly because everything hurts, but having her see you weak and useless like this hurts the most.

Your legs give out on the fifteenth lap and your entire bodyweight falls into Root's arms. She holds you, like you weigh nothing, like you're not the heaviest thing she's ever had to carry. She lets you hang until you regroup, until you're able to control your legs again.

Root doesn't see the rage swimming in your eyes- or if she does, she doesn't comment.

When you collapse on the bed, a sheen of sweat on your forehead and arms, you turn to Root and say "get out."

It comes out sharper than you'd intended. Root's eyebrows twitch- she leaves.

When you wake up the next day, you find a tennis ball, a set of elastic resistance bands, some light dumbbells, and a shakeweight piled neatly on Root's chair. You work hard with everything except the shakeweight because fuck her that's not funny.

You relocate to a loft style safe house in Pennsylvania, once you can do things like walk and hold a fork and sleep for more than four hours without waking up screaming. 

Root brings two duffle bags of stuff she salvaged from your old apartment.

"I promise none of this is bugged," she says, "but I can't make that promise for anything else in this place."

Root's on her way to the door when you realize, "what no offer to christen the new mattress?"

She half turns and says "when you're ready-" 

Words Root has never spoken before and you hope she never speaks again. Ready is a lie. You will never be ready for Root. Root is that element of life that you don't understand, but don't fear. She's a force of nature. You can try to prepare, but really, there's no way to be ready for her, and you know that.

She has a point though. Root has to relearn your body. You have to relearn your body. Things that used to feel good don't feel good anymore. Some things don't feel like anything all. You always used to be able to count on your body to fill in the gaps your mind couldn't- to respond to flirting with a shrug, to respond to affectionate gestures with a rough kiss, to step up and translate all the things you wanted to say in words to Root, but couldn't. 

In a post-torture body, you don't know yourself anymore. Your nerves have been fused and your muscles have been worn down, your bones cracked and your veins pumped full of new ink, meant to write a story that isn't even yours. Looking at the smooth fringes of the tip of your left ring finger, where your fingerprint used to be, you feel sick. Martine didn't just torch off some of your prints, she torched off parts of your identity. You know what Sameen Shaw looks like, (you've looked in mirrors, hesitantly, since your recovery), but you don't know who she is.

You have a lot of time to think, hiding out in the safe house, doing wrist strengthening exercises on the couch while Root does Machine Things at a repurposed patio table in the kitchen. You watch her work, her elegant wrists protruding from the too-short sleeves of her ion labcoat, her glasses slipping down her nose.

You wonder if the pressure you feel behind your eyes and under your sternum when you look at Root is the same thing she feels when she looks at you.

You sleep on the couch. The bed is big enough for two people but you're afraid of what you might do or say in your sleep. Before you go to sleep, now, you have to put a rubber mouth guard in between your teeth. You tie one foot to the coffee table, just in case your dreams tempt you to roam. 

Root leaves the bedroom door open. She pushes the bed awkwardly against one wall so that her side of it faces out, looking directly at you. She could care less about subtlety, or privacy. You wake up from fevered dreams to see her little face poking up from the bed, watching you, eyes bleary and bright, hair messy as hell. 

It makes you angry.

"Why can't you shut the door at night?" you ask one morning, over the steak and egg breakfast you somehow managed to cook.

Root crunches her apple, studies the bite mark, deep in thought.

"If I did," she finally says, "it would be a lie."

"I wouldn't mind."

"Shaw. We don't lie to each other." It's an admonishment and a promise at the same time.

You can't remember if that's true or not.

The next time you wake yourself up shouting, Root gets out of bed and brings you a glass of water. She hands you the sleeping pill you refused to take before. She doesn't say anything, but she does stroke your hair, carefully, tentatively, just once. 

You reach up and softly touch her hand. You can feel her pulse fluttering in her wrist, a steady rythm under her warm, soft skin. Root pauses and looks at you, waiting. You want to pull her down onto you. You want to feel her mouth against yours and her hands in your hair, fingers stroking behind your ears, and taste her skin under your lips. You want to be comfortable with handcuffs and hoods and sex tasers again. You want everything, and anything but to be frozen in place in a body that doesn't feel like it belongs to you anymore. Desire makes your breath catch and you have to swallow thickly and squeeze her hand a little tighter. Root gives you a sympathetic pat on the shoulder, an understanding half smile.

She slips back into the bedroom without a word, but the message is clear: just wait. don't worry about it.

You don't WANT to wait. You want to go to her now, to fall into bed with her and speak that secret Root-and-Shaw language of overt roughness and secret gentleness that it seems Samaritan has all but purged from you. 

You sigh and kick the arm of the couch as you settle in for the night.

The annoying truth is, in the weeks after Samaritan implodes, you don't know when you'll be ready to have sex again. You don't know if you will ever be able to fuck around with Root like you used to. You don't know how to be her girlfriend, which she insists you are, without sex. You know it's just bodies coming together, but even that... Your hands still shake and even the feeling of laying flat on your back fills you with gusts of panic. You used to think your body, like your mind, was at least partially immune to common human weaknesses like isolation, deprivation, torture. Greer and Martine proved you wrong. Now, even though you want it, the idea of Root's lithe body resting on top of you, or her fingers circling rope around your wrists, scares away your breath and makes your body want to wretch and curl in on itself. But. Your mind and every other other unnamed part of you wants desperately for Root to touch you, comfortably, casually, like she's entitled to every inch of you, like she used to.

It's weeks after that before you can kiss her. It's a cold afternoon. The sky is dark and wet like the side of an ocean liner and the frosty air makes your still-tender spine ache. Still, you make your way to the dog park to sit on a crumbling concrete bench and watch pigeons peck at detritus on the ground. You're hoping to see some dogs. Instead, after an hour of watching your own silent breaths steam out of your mouth and evaporate, you notice a familiar, black-clad, beanie-wearing figure. It's Root, tripping along as she does when she's lost in happy (usually destructive) thoughts. She's gripping two thermoses and when she gets close enough, she shoves one into your numb hands.

"Thanks, stalker." You take a sip. It's Irish coffee. Strong, too. Root must notice the pleased surprise on your face because she smirks at you. So you grab her sleeve and pull her in and kiss the smugness off her stupid omniscient face. Then that's it. You drink your coffee and Root drinks hers and later you go back to your shared apartment and eat food and you clean your guns while Root does Machine Things and at night you go to bed (together, you've made it off the couch) and you still don't have sex.

But the first kiss paves the way for more. Casual. Unconcerned. Like you used to have together. It's a long time before you feel like you can do anything more, before you feel like your body is really yours enough to pass it on to Root, to let her play around with it for a while. But the journey back is a pleasant one, filled with slow builds and long, unbroken moments of eye contact that make Harold clear his throat.

"Don't be such an old prune, Harry. I'm eye-sexing Sameen. This is a big step for us" You catch Root scolding him.

She's so fucking saucy. You drag her away from Harold and back to your apartment on the pretext that you're tired. But as soon as your shoes are off, you pull her onto the couch and start kissing the cockiness right off her face. 

Her lips are still cold from outside and so are her fingers, softly dragging along your cheek. You haven't felt so hot though in a very long time. You breathe Root in. You give Root your mouth. You run your hand along her thigh, you find yourself palming one of her breasts. You get lost in the frenetic desire to taste and feel more of her. You try to do too much too fast, and suddenly your body feels like a tornado. The blood roaring in your ears drowns out the little sighs and moans coming from Root. You are too aware, then, of your own flesh, of the places where your heartbeat meets your skin.

Root leans away from your mouth, draws in a steadying breath, and murmurs in your ear,

"Shaw, slow down."

"But I-"

"Sameen," there's a warning in her voice, a tone you haven't heard in almost a year.

"Root."

"All that matters is that you're here. Everything else will come in time."

"I want it to come now," you tell her, trying hard to suppress the shaking in your hands and voice that isn't entirely from the breathtaking mouth-on-mouth olympics.

"I know," she squeezes your hand. "I do too. You know, sweetie, you and I are so much more than those intimate little exchanges of mind-shattering sex and tasers."

"But-"

"And if I can't have it with you, I don't want it with anyone, and whatever I can have with you, I'll take and I'll be happy with it."

You can't really argue with that. You let your gaze travel across Root's face. She's wide-eyed with worry- worry for you. Her lips are red and swollen from kissing you. 

She doesn't need to kiss you to want you. She doesn't need to fuck you to want you. She just wants... you. 

In whatever form you take. You're beginning to understand that.


	6. reciprocity: part two

It takes four months for you to fully inhabit your own skin again. Months of training and medications and mandatory rest that you hate. Finch threatens to put an ankle monitor on you if you don't take it easy. He won't let you do any of the important machine rebuilding work. You sit in the drafty blacksite safehouse with Root, doing muscle-toning exercises and watching her solder and weld tiny machine parts together.

Soldering and welding means safety goggles- so, of course, your mind drifts back to your first kidnapping together, to waking up ziptied to the steering wheel of an suv, and being so annoyed and impressed by Root. The exquisite fuck-drama of the CIA safehouse. Punching her because you really wanted to kiss her...

Root is wearing a demagnetized lab coat and a slinky grey tee shirt and her usual black jeans. Her face twists in concentration as she fastens a motherboard onto...some other computer thing. The lab coat is too short and you can see her elegant wrists flex and twist as her long, slender fingers dart here and there. Her nail polish is chipping and her nails are really short. She's never had long nails, you think, idly, not since you've known her.

The memory of her fingers darting here and there on your body, in your body, rises to the surface of your memory. Your mouth waters a little. Other places inside you begin to stir, fighting against their forced hibernation. 

You leave Root to her gadgets in the main room and go flop down on the couch, which smells like her. She slept there consistently, before your rescue, and sometimes still enjoys naps on its lumpy, squished cushions. You and Root have shared a bed for a while now, but sometimes you accidentally kick at her in the night and that makes you angry, at yourself and at Samaritan in equal measure. Right now though, with the couch facing away from her and the fragrance of Root's shampoo on the cushion by your face, you feel less angry and more... inspired. 

You let your hands wander, as you've been getting used to doing again lately. You touch yourself slowly, imagining it's Root's hands. You let yourself get lost in the sensations and the smell of her shampoo clinging to the couch. You're feeling good, getting closer to satisfaction than you've been in months, when you hear footfalls approaching. The thought crosses your mind, just for a second, to leave it and pretend to be asleep. But then, you're already opening your eyes to catch Root's look of blatant surprise.

"I was just thinking about you," you deadpan.

Root smiles, all teeth and promises, and advances on you.

"Were you now?" 

"Yup."

"When you were thinking about me, was I about to go down on you?" She asks lightly.

"Didn't get that far."

"Mm, too bad. If you had, I might have thought you'd turned psychic."

And then she gets on her knees, right beside where your hand disappears under your jeans. Root pushes your shirt up and licks and kisses your stomach. It's hot and wet and her mouth is acting as desperate as you feel. This is as far as you've ventured together, but something in the static shift of the air between you and the dark look in Root's eyes tlls you that's about to change.

Before you know it, she's slipped your pants and underwear off. Root runs her hands up your shins and strokes under your knees. She presses your thighs apart and moves in to put her mouth on you. You watch, unmoving but not unmoved by the devotion she's trying so hard not to give away.

"Shaw?" she pauses, scrutinizing your face, "Do you want me to keep going?"

It isn't a teasing, 'tell me what you want' question. It feels different, open ended and honest. It's a consent question. You and Root have idly discussed safe-words in the past, but as far as consent... You'd both always been so madly horny for each other that the "yes, more!" had always preceded the "do you want to?" 

A consent question means that Root is aware, at least somewhat aware, of how much your body doesn't belong to you these days, thanks to Samaritan. A consent question means Root knows how weak you were- are. How even the prospect of your kind-of-girlfriend going down on you is a lot to handle. 

The sadness and warmth and concern in her face broadcasts everything. You want to look away but you can't.

"Shaw," Root says again, moving her face away from your body, her palms still soft and warm and steady on your thighs, "I'm sorry. Too much?"

"No," you say, "keep going."

"Are you sure?"

You nod. The blood pumping through your veins suddenly feels very much your own again, as you stare down between your thighs at Root, all starry-eyed and gnawing on her lower lip. She wants all of you and you want her back, it's like a trumpet call echoing between your bodies. It cannot be ignored. You know she can sense it too.

Root reaches up and locks her left hand's fingers with your right hand. "If you need to stop or take a break or whatever, just let go of my hand, ok?"

There's a sweetness and a compassion in her voice that should make you sick. A gentleness that should make you feel coddled and babied. Root cares about you and she doesn't want to hurt you. In the past, this would have made you roll your eyes. But now, instead, it makes you feel... safe. Root cares. She doesn't have to, but she does. Root has your back, even when it's just the two of you in bed together (bed, couch, whatever).

She presses a smile into your skin, "just enjoy yourself," she murmurs.

You nod and Root bites your thigh, softly, but enough to sting sweetly for a second.

But just as she's moving in for the kill, you squirm away from her, "wait,"

She looks up at you expectantly.

"You might not wanna- I haven't had a chance to shower today or shave or anything."

Root chuckles, "That's what you're worried about?" 

"It's been a while."

Root strokes your lower belly with her long, slender fingers, she studies your face, glances down at the state of your body. She quirks one eyebrow at you.

"What's the expression all the kids are using these days? 'I literally give zero fucks.' Now can I put my mouth on you or no?"

You sigh, "Promise you'll use your hands if it gets too jungly."

Root laughs, "I promise. Is this your annual second of unwarranted insecurity right now?"

Before you can answer, she has pressed her lips to you and begun driving her tongue, all hot and wet and silky, along your folds, rolling it up and coaxing your clit out.

Root's gone down on you plenty of times before, but it's always been wonderfully messy and forceful, a symphony of teeth and hard licks and holding out until you were begging. Not like this, now. Her touch is gentle and soft and warm. It's controlled and intimate. Yeah it feels good, the pressure and motions are just right, but the lust-fueled wildfire of heady sloppy sex isn't there. You don't feel like she's planning on tormenting you with her mouth at all. There's no hand, hard on your hip, anchoring you down. No threat of a sharp bite to your inner thigh and no nails breaking your skin as she pushes you deeper and deeper into pleasure. Nothing hurts, and you're not sure you like it.

"Harder," you demand, tugging her shoulder, "harder, Root."

She shakes her head and sighs into you as her tongue keeps going, circling, licking, thrusting.

You dig your nails into her scalp and try to pull her in closer. She looks up at you with wide, teary eyes and you know she's doing her best not to go easy you, you know she's trying hard not to spill how much she adores you. You know she can't give you rough tonight. Tonight she needs to be gentle. So you shrug and lay back and let her go. 

Root takes her time, letting the desperate pressure inside you unfurl. Her caresses wash over you and you find yourself melting into her touch. The innermost workings of your body stretch and yawn and awake, aching for her touch. You can feel Root's hot tears spilling over against your thigh as she kisses you deeply and intimately. She slides two fingers into you and crooks them, pulling against your g spot, making you shudder inside and out. Root's fingers and tongue are everywhere, soft and warm and sweetly nudging you toward an orgasm, Your spine straightens and your hips jolt up. Root laps firmly at your clit. You come with a sigh, waves of pleasure rolling through you. 

Root waits until you stop clenching around her fingers. She discreetly wipes her eyes, but leaves the wetness from your body on her chin. She preens, clearly pleased with herself. Your chest stings when you look at her, all disheveled and so unabashedly in love with you. You thread your fingers through her hair.

"That felt really good,"

Root looks entirely too smug, despite the watery eyes business.

"That must be like doing your first pushup after recovering from a broken arm." She muses, wiping her face off but remaining ensconced between your legs.

"What?"

"Just... you're going to need a lot of practice before you get to ten in a row again."

You groan. "God you're such a nerd sometimes."

She grins, "you wanna go again?"

You shake your head and pull her up so she's scooped in next to you on the couch. 

"I want to feel you," you say, right into her mouth, kissing her as your hand glides down her body. Without preamble, you're stroking her sex. Her skin is smooth and soft, her body can be so delicate sometimes. It still gives you pause, years after your recovery, the way Root can smash the daylights out of you in olympic feats of sex one minute, and curl up into you like a small child the next minute. As you weave your limbs together on the safehouse couch, you revel in touching her, making her cling to you with desire. In only a few minutes, she's clenching her fists and you can feel her trying not to press her whole body into yours.

"Root," you say between kisses, "it's ok."

She nuzzles your neck.

"You're not gonna hurt me if you crush me a little bit."

She sniffles something you can't really hear. Your grumble and pull her firmly against yourself with your free arm. Her knees and hips and breasts align tight against you. You can feel her warm belly and the one arm she's got folded up between you like a smushed bird wing. 

"Closer," you say, and she shifts against your fingers, "I want you so close that there's no space left between us."

Root moans into your ear when you say this. You feel her entrance, slick and wet, open and waiting for you. You enter her carefully, your fingers go so deep inside her. You feel the hot and silky walls inside her. You feel her chilly nose and sharp wet chin, her knocky joints, her soft places, her pulse, her blunt nails, her breath. You feel all of Root, as your fingers work a steady rhythm inside her and your tongue strokes a matching pace in her mouth, which still tastes like you. 

Root comes sharply, gasping and clutching at you like you'll turn to dust the moment her orgasm passes by.

"I'm here," you tell her, "I'm right here."

Root doesn't say anything and she won't look at you. She digs her face into your neck and squeezes you like a boa constrictor.

"I won't freak out if you have to cry,"

"Yes, you will," her voice sounds thick and wet, muffled against your skin.

"I won't. I promise."

Root sniffs. You can feel her hot tears running down your neck, her jaw trembling.

"Hey," you say, "just let it go."

It's the only time you ever see Root cry, that time after you have sex for the first time since escaping Samaritan. You don't see it so much as feel it, but you know it's happening. The shudders of her breaths rock through your chest too. The tears start in her eyes, but they'll dry into your skin. It's the closest you've ever come to having a good cry yourself. Root's joy and relief and grief soak into you, her tears are for you, because of you. She digs her fingers into your back and holds you tighter than any zip tie or set of handcuffs ever could. You imagine she'll bruise herself as much as she'll bruise you and you don't really know what to do.

So you hold her right back. You keep her firmly in your arms. You anchor her to your chest until her sobs fade into silence and your heartbeats echo one another. 

"Sorry," Root murmurs when she's finally done crying.

"It's ok. I know why you had to cry. I know that... that you love me," you whisper.

"I do," Root confesses.

You don't have an answer to that, but then, Root never asked for one. So you bump your nose into hers, instead, and lick her once on the side of her face. Like Bear would do in your situation. It's gross, but Root almost laughs.

You lay for a while together under a blanket of silence, skin against skin, breaths intermingling in the scant centimeters between your sated bodies.

"I never did that with anyone before."

"What, let someone cry all over you?"

"No, I never had sex like that. You know gentle. I never liked it all soft and ... shit." You pause and reflect, "I think with you I could learn to like pretty much anything."


	7. violent affections

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> contains shower sex, several mentions of spanking, and a vaguely domestic-discipline-like scenario.

In your line of work (first with fixing people and then with torturing or killing them and then with kneecapping them as needed), you learned early on to get comfortable with the sight and smell and feel of spilled blood. Other people's blood, your own blood, whatever. It no longer makes your stomach twinge, not that it ever did, much. 

But when you see Root bleeding (or bruised or sprained, or hurt in any way), some razor-wire inside you- wrapped around all your important, heavy organs- gets pulled really tight, really fast. Even if it's just a graze from a metal fence she crawled under too carelessly. You don't like it and you won't stand for it. Patching Root up is ninety percent of your job, most of the time, that and trying to keep her away from stray bullets and knives and anything that could damage her. If she's going to get roughed up, you decide, you're going to be the one to do it. 

Root doesn't share your concern for her safety. She worries about you in an annoying and over-protective way, keeping you out of the loop any time she thinks there's the faintest hint of personal danger. You know why she does it, now, after Samaritan. Root tries valiantly and excessively to keep you safe, but she never puts in the same effort for herself. Even in the peaceful era that follows the destruction of Samaritan and the reconstruction of the machine, Root plays fast and loose with her own safety, like she has some kind of overbearing death drive. It's your job, and has been for some while, to push the override button on that stupid death drive. 

You've spent too many nights with a bright desk lamp hoisted over your kitchen table, stitching new tracks into Root's porcelain skin, cleaning her cuts, popping her shoulder back into place, setting broken bones, administering emergency tetanus shots and blood transfusions: worrying. 

The worrying is like a too tight shoe, slowly rubbing you raw. It doesn't hurt, but it makes you mad. 

You wonder if the worrying you do about Root is anything like the worrying your mother used to do about you when, as a teenager, you disappeared for days on end to run wild, street fight, blow things up, steal cars, have unsafe sexcapades. You wonder if your face is even capable of making that twisted-mouth, disapproving frown you remember your mother shooting your way on occasion.

You knew your mother fretted when you came home smelling like the abandoned warehouses you'd crashed out in, or wearing clothes singed from explosives, or bloodied from a fight. You knew, but you couldn't say you cared. Thrill-seeking and academics were the two (incongruous) things that gave you the most pleasure as a kid. And as much as the academic success pleased your mother, the thrill-seeking pissed her off, frightened her. 

You know what fear looks like on a face, and you know the difference between fear for yourself and fear for someone else, the way it writes itself into human expressions. You've learned it from your patients, from your coworkers, from your friends, from Root. From your mother, all those years ago, never afraid of what you might do to other people. Always afraid of what you might do to yourself. You never thought about what it was like for her, or understood, until now, nearly twenty years later, when you find yourself going through life with a volatile hacker who, at thirty-five, has basically the same disregard for personal safety that you did at fourteen

Your mother worried because she loved you fiercely. You know that because she'd never once acted like there was anything wrong with you, when you failed to make friends, when you got into trouble. When you got angry because people were stupid and hitting them was frowned upon by the authorities When the authorities were stupid and puncturing their tires was frowned upon by the police... when the police were stupid and tried to make you have "guilt." Your mother would pat you on the shoulder and distract you from your frustration with a sandwich. 

She'd say, "it'll be ok, Sameen."

You know she loved you because she would never let you have a dog, but felt so bad about it that she took you to the same zoo every weekend for five years (and you realized, when you were sixteen and found that book about maladjusted children in her office, just why she'd never let you have any pets). 

You know your mother loved you because she'd tried, ineffectively, to punish you for your youthful streaks of violent self-destruction. How many times had she bailed you out of the principal's office or police custody and dragged you home? How many afternoons had you ended up grounded from the paintball range, or once in a great while, with your pants down, bent over the kitchen table, while your mother used a hefty wooden spoon to work out her worry and fear for you on your ass? Not that it had done much good. Your pain tolerance had always been more of a pain thirst, and forget about remorse... Your mother always wound up more upset from punishing you than you ever were from being punished.

But even then, even right in the middle of getting smacked for knocking some teeth out of that kid on the wrestling team who had maybe stolen your cigarettes (also for having cigarettes), you never doubted that your mother loved you. Not once. She was always worried about you, always asking "Sameen, where are you going?" "Sameen, did you sleep last night?" and "Sameen, did you eat today?" 

You know that's what you do when you care about someone. You worry about them and you try to make them feel good in their own skin, and if you can't give them a dog, you take them to the zoo, and you chase them through every ring of fire they feel the need to jump through and if they do crazy self-destructive shit, you smack them a little bit until they come to their senses.

You would never smack Root though (except for during sex, because she likes it and you like it. Smacking as a rule, is as intimate a gesture between the two of you as kissing is between normal people, in the kinky underworld that is your bedroom). 

But sometimes you want to punch Root's face. Hard, with the full force of your body. You like her, you care about her, and you sometimes want to hurt her. You sometimes feel a punch rising up in you like a tidal wave and you have to redirect, diffuse it. It used to be because she was annoying and smug. Now it's because she still doesn't prioritize her own health and safety. You don't punch her face because that would really hurt her and she wouldn't learn anything from it, except that you have a mean right hook (which she already knows, because of what happened after the kidnapping incident).

One night after Root's gone and gotten two fingers broken because she insisted on jumping out of a moving truck (why? you're still not sure), you decide it's time for a talk. With words and eye contact. A serious adult talk. About responsibility and how people who haven't done their laundry in three weeks are not going to fucking get killed and leave you to do it all. When you make it back to the apartment, you gently set her fingers in a splint and wrap that in an ice pack and stare her down until she obediently swallows a painkiller. You sit down on the couch and kick your shoes off.

Root settles next to you, oblivious. She starts clumsily unbuttoning her boots with one hand. You watch her get halfway down one foot before you decide on what to say.

"That was really stupid, what you did tonight," you go for confrontational.

Root doesn't look up from her unbuttoning. "I misjudged the drop. It was an accident."

"No, Root. An accident is spilling coffee on Harold's keyboard. You jumped out of a moving vehicle before I gave you the all clear. If you'd waited thirty sec-"

"I know. I know it was rash, sweetie. Next time I'll be more careful. I know you like my fingers intact."

"Next time you do something like that, I'm gonna taser your ass."

"Pretty sure I'm not the one one whose ass is ever in any real peril in this relationship" Root smirks, giving you a long, slow once over. 

You scowl. She laughs.

She's not laughing eight weeks later when she rushes into gunfire without cover and gets a bullet graze on her arm. All because she marched on into a situation without waiting for you. She's not laughing when you bandage her up and drag her home and she's sure as hell not laughing when you say,

"grab me one of your tasers."

She quirks her eyebrow at you, "Are you planning a little kidnapping and interrogation? Tasers aren't really your style..."

She rummages in a kitchen drawer and tosses you one of her favorite little stun guns; it's fully charged. You check that the prongs are clean and turn it to the lowest setting... If you weren't so mad at her, you'd probably be ready to enjoy this a little bit.

"No." you beckon for her to come over by the couch.

She meanders over, still pressing on her injured arm and looking thoroughly puzzled. You check her bandage. It's clean and dry, secure. The graze is so slight that it isn't even bleeding anymore. Not the point though. You reach down and unclip her belt buckle, thread her belt out of the loops and drop it on the floor. She wrinkles her forehead, confused.

Before she can say anything, you continue,

"Remember what I said that night you got your fingers broken?" You raise your eyebrows.

You see the realization cross her face, maybe the machine even reminded her of your exact words. Root doesn't have time to argue or fight you. In a matter of microseconds, you've spun her around and tugged her jeans and underwear down far enough to expose part of one butt cheek. Which you promptly zap with the stunner. It's fast and jarring and you don't let the current hit her for more than a couple seconds. She lets out a yelp of pain and surprise.

"I said I'd tase your ass," you add, unnecessarily, as Root drops face first onto the couch. 

You roll her onto her back and drape a blanket over her. Her teeth are locked and she's involuntarily jerking her arms and legs and glaring at you.

"Don't be a baby," you say, "I've told you a bunch of times to be more careful. Every time you run headfirst into a dumbass dangerous situation I wanna punch you in the face. It's pointless, Root. You don't NEED to get hurt as much as you do. I want you to stop it. If you don't, I'm gonna taser your ass. every single time. until you get it."

Root clenches her teeth and offers a pained groan in response. "I didn't realize you were so into... corporal punishment."

You smirk at her furious little face,

"Yeah, you did."

You watch her for a few minutes, taking her pulse to make sure the taser didn't do any serious damage. She's fine, but she's making a face like a rained-on, grumpy cat. 

"Next time you want to punish me, a little warning would be nice. Maybe some foreplay..."

You shrug and sit on the coffee table, stare down at her.

"I did warn you. If there's a next time, which there better fucking not be, you're gonna drop trow and bend over the coffee table and I'm gonna get you twice."

Root whimpers, "and here I thought you'd go for a good, old fashioned, American spanking..."

You roll your eyes. "You like that too much. We both do. And don't think being glib will get you out of this conversation. I mean it, Root. You be more careful with yourself or I'm gonna get really fucking mad."

Root blows out a puff of breath. "sorry."

You shrug again. You find some painkillers for her arm and snag a glass of water from the kitchen, leaving both on the table in front of where Root is shivering off the effects of the stun gun.

"I'm making pancakes for dinner. If you feel better later and I'm not still mad at you, maybe you'll get lucky tonight and I actually will spank you. Or you can spank me... we can take turns, or whatever."

Root's eyes flash. 

"Promises, promises Sameen." she winces, "I think I'm going to have a nice little shock burn on my ass."

You nod. "Guess that'll make things more interesting."

...

The next morning, you're in the shower, busy rubbing conditioner into your scalp when Root scampers into the bathroom, totally naked, and plunges into the shower with you. She grabs her floofy sponge thing with one hand and paws at you with the other. It's a friendly, good-morning sort of groping. You bat her hands away, more out of habit that annoyance. Root's eyes are still all drowsy and when she lands a light good-morning nip on your lower lip, you can taste the sleep in her mouth. You pass her the shower gel and go back to moisturizing your hair.

It's a little hard to see, what with trying to keep product out of your eyes, but as Root turns and scrubs at her shin, you notice the shock burn on her ass. It's a tiny vampire-bite looking thing, a bruise/ burn combo. It probably smarts. You reach out and touch it, just with the tips of your fingers. Root flinches, but doesn't say anything.

"It hurt?" you ask, even though the question feels redundant.

"Mmm, not too much."

"I, uh, probably shouldn't have tased you like that,"

Root scrunches her face at you, "what's a little tasing between friends?"

"Maybe it was violent."

Root stops scrubbing and turns to you, smiling, all sharp teeth and satisfaction.

"You are so cute when you're being conscientious, you know that?" 

She leans down and presses a kiss to your face. You squirm away- it's too early for that. 

She rubs the pads of her thumbs in long, slow strokes up your neck and along the backs of your ears. It's such a weak spot and Root knows it. She tugs firmly, almost punitively, at your right earlobe. The move ratchets your heart rate up a few dozen notches. 

"I live for the violence of your affection," she whispers against your cheek, so softly you almost don't hear her over the hiss of the shower.

Root slowly turns you around and presses you into the cool tile wall of the shower. She uses her knee to push your legs apart, and brings one soapy hand around your front to play with your breasts and tickle and tweak and tease your nipples.

"fuck," you breathe. 

"Give it a minute..." she taunts 

The seconds crawl by as Root abandons your front in favor of drawing lazy, slippery pattens on the insides of your thighs, periodically squeezing your butt and inching her fingertips higher and higher up between your legs, almost but not quite touching where you really want her to.

"So why'd you want to punish me? That's not usually your thing." she asks, lightly, teasing your pussy from behind. You weren't aroused when she climbed in the shower, but you sure as fuck are now.

"Sameen," she presses.

"Like I said last night. You don't care about yourself. And- mmm, that worries me."

Root hums, noses your hair, slams three fingers into you from behind.

"Because you care about me?"

"Yes, because I- ahh, oh fuck, Root. Fine, I care about you or whatever. Harder!"

She thrusts into you again, pumping hard, and you thump into the wall. You're pretty sure you see some grout and tile crumbs fleck away when you make impact.

"So that's it? Shhh, no, no, don't come yet- You hurt me because you care about me? Because the thought of something bad happening to me fills you with an all-consuming fury?"

"Yea, unff... I wanted to make you stop being so unnecessarily reckless with your body and- JESUS oh right there! again!" 

Root fucks you so hard you're not sure you're even speaking English (or any of your other languages) anymore.

"That is so..." she adds another finger and practically lifts you off your feet with the force of it, "...sweet."

Root uses her forearm to pin you against the tile and fucks you fast and rough. It feels like sky diving, the blood rushing through your ears, everything tumbling fast and in slow motion at the same time. You breathe deeply, smelling the perfume of mutual arousal mixed with your shared shower gel. Root leans down and licks at one of the roughest patches of Samaritan scar tissue on your shoulder. She presses up and twists her hand inside you, crushing your g-spot, lifting you onto your toes.

"When did you get so fucking strong?"

"I've been working out."

"Stirring pancake batter--- ahh, ow, yes... fuckk. is not... a workout."

She breathes a laugh into your ear and presses her thumb tentatively against your ass.

You inhale sharply, "oh god, Root, yes, do it."

She does it. 

"Come for me," she orders, biting a path along your neck.

Her fingers rush hard and fast and everywhere inside of you, filling you from every angle and beyond every capacity. You stretch and pulse and shudder around the world of pressure she's created inside you. Her lips and teeth are heaven and hell on your skin. You come once and Root keeps going, shoving you into a deeper, wetter, second orgasm, with you clenching and shaking around her, slamming a fist against the shower wall. 

"One more," Root slows down but doesn't stop until you've come a third time, "mm, that's a good girl."

You bend down, hands on your knees, and try to catch your breath while Root resumes her leisurely bathing.

"You have my permission," She informs you, rubbing some soap into her hands, scrubbing under her fingernails, "to tase my ass- or whatever part of me you want, any time you think I'm being ... unnecessarily reckless." 

You nod. 

Root grins and pulls you toward her, pressing her palm down on your shoulder. She glances pointedly at the shower floor, she clearly wants you on your knees. 

"Now how about you let me finish washing your hair?" 

You shake your head and roll your eyes. "I already washed my hair," 

Root pouts and you give in, sliding down her body and plunging your face into her pussy. Her grip on your head is probably going to damage your scalp, or crush your skull, but you couldn't care less. It strikes you as a little bit funny, that only a few years ago, the very same hands that are now clutching desperately, powerlessly, at you were engaged in snapping that bitch Martine's neck (a move you taught Root, too).

You grasp the backs of Root's thighs, pull her close, and lick and suck and tongue her until she's panting and shifting from foot to foot. You get aggressive and suck hard on her clit, which makes her writhe like hell. When she comes, it's wet and long, and messy all over your face. It makes you glad you're already in the shower.

You stand up, ignoring the grout indents on your kneecaps. Root grabs your chin, plunges her tongue into your mouth. She takes control of your kiss, rolling her tongue around in her own juices on your tongue. She moans just a little bit down your throat: it's so raunchy, you both break away laughing. 

You manage to finish getting clean without lapsing into sex again, even though Root spends most of the rest of the shower blatantly checking you out.

You don't understand why she does that, after all this time. You've been having sex conversations for years now. Root listens to you shout at dream demons, she wakes up next to you, she watches you brush your teeth, she knows what you smell like after the gym. Root has been there, doting on you, through every gross, unclean, broken version of your body, and your mind. She's seen you unwashed, unshaved, hungover, injured, sporting a fever and a runny nose, and no matter what state of unsexiness you're in, she checks you out like you're a prime cut of steak and she's a starving lion. And now, in a shower where you've both just soundly fucked each other, you catch Root ogling you again like she wants nothing more than to put her hands all over you.

"You're adorable when you're all pruney." Root teases, tucking some wet hair behind your ear.

You ignore that. 

"Are you going to be all distant today because I tricked you into admitting you care about me?"

"I do care about you," you say. 

"I think I knew that before you tased me."

Root draws you in, strokes soapy streaks up and down your arms and back while wrapping herself around you, just for a minute.

"Please care about yourself," you whisper, your lips pressed against her collar bone.

Root doesn't reply. Maybe she doesn't hear you. Maybe it's a promise she'd never be able to keep. Maybe she can't fully care about herself like she cares about the machine or about you.

"If you can't do that now," you add, "I'll just keep following you around and sticking bandages on you and tasing your stupid ass until you can." 

She sighs happily into your hair.

Your stomach growls, ruining the seriousness of the moment.

Root pokes your belly, "sounds like someone wants more pancakes." she muses, shutting off the water and stealing your only towel on her way out of the bathroom.

You follow her with an indignant shout. She doesn't even know how to make pancakes without starting a fire. Goddamn nerdling needs full time supervision.


	8. let's get away from it all

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Christmas interlude. 99% smut, 1% plot. ya been warned.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> so this is mostly smut but i wanted to include a chapter about how i imagine Root and Shaw spend a Christmas together. hint. it basically has nothing to do with Christmas.

Your third New York winter in your post-Samaritan body is agonizing. The snowfall and ice buildup reaches record levels, sidewalks are eclipsed in slush, and even the city's strongest hosing, salting, and shoveling efforts can't combat the frigid, cutting wind. It's worse than the January you spent doing cold climate training in Nova Scotia. 

You'd never admit it, but your body aches in the cold sometimes, in the places it got the most broken. You know Root has seen you struggle to get your feet working in the morning in your poorly-heated apartment. Root insists on piling hot water bottles and blankets into the bed at night, and you suspect it's not all for her own benefit. Sometimes she says, "indulge me" and grabs your feet, massages them through your thick socks. You cross your arms and scowl, but her hands are strong and sure and soon you feel relief chasing away the soreness. You're grateful for Root, who notices the things you try to conceal, who cares so much that she pays attention to the subtlest changes in your body. You've stopped trying to hide when you feel your face go ashen at the twinges of pain that shoot through your shoulders and vertebrae if you move a certain way against the cold. You've stopped worrying that Root will think you're inadequate because sometimes you have to rub an awful lot of tiger balm all over your knee. 

Root never mentions these things, but she is aware of them. She never looks at you any differently, but sometimes you find jars of special FDA-verboten medicines and salves in your bathroom, with the instructions translated from Russian, Chinese, Korean, in Root's messy script. Some of them help, some don't. What you really want is to get away from cold, just for a little while. Root must want this too, because she keeps leaving travel magazines in the subway.

She finally asks you about it, one day in the middle of December, as you're strolling together behind an oblivious number.

Root swings her arms against the wind and puffs out a breath cloud.

"If you could be anywhere in the world right now, where would it be?" 

You trudge a few more paces in a silence that is only broken by the slushing of wet snow under your feet. The sidewalks are filthy, wet, and treacherous... like Root was last night, you think to yourself, absently rubbing the rope burn on your wrist.

"Beach," you decide, "in the Caribbean. Surfing, sand, maybe a speed boat-- with lots of cocktails... But no stupid tourists."

"Mmm, sounds like paradise."

"It probably would be, for all of two minutes 'til you'd start ragging on me about how fine my ass looks in a Brazilian bikini."

Root doesn't say anything. She tilts her head and gawks at you, just for a split second. Her forehead crinkles microscopically and she looks confused, almost like you've answered in a language she doesn't understand. You think back, no, you definitely answered in English. You decide she must be brain-shorted by the thought of you in a bikini, but--

"But you've never seen me in a bikini, have you Root? I've heard it's pretty damn hot. Maybe I'd get lucky and it would render you speechless... for the entire trip. or year." 

You smirk at the idea.

"You would want me..." Root's gaze drifts away, "You would want me... not to tease you. Hm. well, if you were a good Sameen and did me some late night favors, and lathered me up with sunscreen in all my hard to reach places, maybe I'd play nice."

Your number chooses that minute to get mugged and it's annoying because you had so many comebacks for Root about her hard to reach places.

You forget you even had the conversation, when you get to kneecap a guy carrying the newest hotrod nano and Reese claims he should have it but fuck him, finders keepers. Even if he does whine to Finch about it and Finch says you have to share. You'll just conveniently break one John's other guns, you decide. Maybe Root will help. It can be a cute couple's project. Like painting lamps together, or renovating a bedroom into a sex dungeon...

Before you can propose this mayhem to Root, you overhear her talking to the machine (you assume).

"No, no the same package," she says, hushed and hurriedly, "- yes, yes, same suite, yes I understand... and for two instead of one. Massages too, of course. No, the added cost is no problem."

You pretend not to have heard a thing but something weird is afoot and you know it. And it better not have anything to do with stupid Christmas next week. You and Root both dislike Christmas. The holiday season makes Root depressed and the influx of loud, confused tourists makes you irritable. Neither of you can connect to the joy for all mantra that Reese and Finch seem so amenable to. Neither of you can understand the spirit of the season that Finch goes on about when he advocates taking a little vacation time. It doesn't feel real, not like a warm gun or a complex string of code.

"Let's go to the upstate safehouse and build snowmen and shoot them up." Root had suggested a few weeks ago, as an alternative to Christmas.

"And get Chinese and beer and see how long we can make out before caving."

"Oooh, whoever caves first has to wear the sex monkey costume."

"I'm not fucking wearing that," you growl, because you know you'll cave first. You always do.

Now you're beginning to wonder if Root isn't going to try to pull some White Christmas nonsense on you, with a tree and lights and the pressure of gift giving, the pressure of resounding joy, the pressure to connect to some holiday feeling. You don't think she would, but with Root, you can never be certain.

You try to put the holidays out of your mind. Root has promised you violence, food, and sex on a day you would otherwise spend irate and probably a little drunk. You focus on that, and on which long range weapons would be the most fun to shoot snow-people with. You work another number, three days before Christmas Eve, cold and icy with only a sniper rifle for company on a deserted rooftop for ten hours.

"I think I lost feeling in my butt" you grumble to Bear when you return your weapon to the station.

"I can help with that" Root chirps from inside the subway car.

You roll your eyes. Root saunters out. She must have been waiting there for you to shoot your guy and return because she's already wearing her coat and hat and scarf and a pair of those children's mittens that are attached to each other by a long string that runs through the sleeves. The mittens dangle next to her hands like floppy blue winglets. How she found an adult sized pair is beyond you. She advances on you and hovers while you break down and clean the gun.

"I can make your ass nice and warm for you, I can make it feel allll kinds of things" Root says, low and promising, as she tries to reach into your back pockets to grope said ass and you shove her away.

"You stay away from my butt."

"Now Sameen, that's not what you said last time, and not what you'll be saying later."

You growl. 

Harold clears his throat and neither of you care, much.

"I'm leaving." you announce, re-racking the weapon and ammo. "We're getting pizza tonight.."

"That's not all some of us are getting" Root adds, giving you a pointed look and a firm smack on the ass. 

Harold's cheeks and ears turn very red. he looks away from both of you and and busies himself fidgeting with a hard drive on his desk,

"I didn't mean you, Harry" Root placates.

"Oh my god, Root, shut up. We get it, you're going to spank me later. Now come on. I'm hungry." 

You grab her wrist hard and drag her toward the exit. She bounces along next to you, effortlessly matching your stride with those long legs.

"Don't forget what we talked about earlier," Root calls back to Harold you march her out.

"I shan't. You ladies enjoy your... evening. See you when you get back. and, er, be safe--" 

"Get back from where?" you wonder. But if Harold says anything else, you don't catch it. Your butt and the rest of you is still freezing and you're a little annoyed at Root for groping you in front of Bear. He doesn't need to see that. You don't loosen your grip on her as you stalk your way through the village to your favorite grimy, but delicious, pizza bar. 

"I'm getting french fry pizza," you tell Root, "you are going to eat something, because you look like a ghost right now, and then you're going to tell me everything."

Root gets wide eyed. "what? tell you what?"

You grin.

"Tell me exactly, in precise detail, just how you plan on warming up my poor, cold ass when we get home."

And then you head to the counter to order pizza for you and some vegetable-based imposter of a burger for Root. Honestly, falling for a vegetarian. A vegetarian with occasional vegan inclinations... You hate yourself a little for that.

You order extra bacon on your pizza to compensate.

"Sameen," Root says when you finish eating and her detailed descriptions of her evil plans for the night have lit certain fires low and deep inside you.

She suddenly gets nervous, in those little ways she thinks she's doing a good job of hiding (pupil dilation, eye movement, faintest rigidity in body language). You're not sure you've ever seen Root intentionally project as much stress and discomfort as she's trying to mask right now. Hell, she doesn't even realize that she's tearing her napkin into tiny shreds that pile up on the table like soft paper snow.

"What is it?"

"Remember a few weeks ago when you said you wanted to be on a beach somewhere?"

You nod. You still want to be on a beach somewhere. You would give almost anything to get out of New York right now.

Root swallows thickly, and hesitates, then blurts:

"I might have planned a sexcation for us."

"What?"

"The Bahamas. Two weeks. Starting tomorrow afternoon. You, me, private beach, no tourists."

You stare at her. She's shredding another little piece of napkin and studying you, but she's got a little smile on her face, like she's trying and failing to be casual. 

It hits you, then. She's nervous you'll reject her. How does she not know by now that you could never reject her?

You shake your head at her.

"I guess you left us just enough time to decide what toys to pack."

Root visibly breathes a small sigh of relief. You reach across the table, disrupting her tiny pile of shredded napkin fibers. You grab her hand and stroke the side of it with your thumb. 

"Remember Miami?"

Root grins like a fox. 

"It took three weeks for that bruise to disappear."

"Let's go home and try and beat that record."

"Our record's not all that's going to get be-"

You lean across the table and kill her stupid pun with your mouth. She gets a sharp lip bite for being a smartass, even though you know she'll punish you for it later.

The next night, though,you really are in a gorgeous beach setting in the honest to goodness Bahamas. 

You travel under cover, obviously, as sports drink sales reps because the machine has a weird sense of humor. The Machine, you realize mid-flight, isn't responsible for any of this beyond your cover identities. The first class tickets, the food, the room on the beach- it's all Root. It's a gift. And that makes you wish you had something to give her. 

Your hotel room opens out onto the beach, which is bad from a security standpoint, but you have your best knife in your luggage so you feel safe. And Root sets up a tiny, outward facing camera, one by the hallway door and one by the outside door, with feeds to he phone and the machine.

"As long as she can't see the bed," you warn

"or the bath," Root adds.

The difference in climate is wonderful. Your body unfurls and your limbs feel elastic and strong again. You drag Root into the balmy, turquoise sea water and splash her until she looks like a wet kitten. You drink cocktails under a wide umbrella on a sunny, white-sand beach. You rub sun lotion onto Root's fragile skin and she rubs tanning lotion onto your back and somewhere along the way you miss the romantic sunset because you're making out athletically, hands still slippery from all the sun safety and mouths sweet with mango and berry flavored drinks. 

Back in the hotel suite, you peel Root's pretty, patterned sundress off her body and untie her bikini straps. She settles naked on the linen bedcover, propped up on her elbows with her long legs stretched out to the end of the bed, resplendent like a goddess waiting to be worshipped. Your mouth goes dry as you shed your clothes and climb on top of her. Root glances over your shoulder at the large mirror facing the bed.

"You have some very telling bruises. You must have done something terribly naughty..." she says, squeezing your ass hard, knowing full well who put those bruises there.

"I got a girl back in the states," you reply, nipping at her, "very aggressive with a hairbrush."

"mmmm, I bet she's got all kinds of things she'd like to get aggressive with."

You grin and lick a path along her throat.

"My turn now," you declare, and you slip your fingers inside her as you lick and bite and suck.

Root gasps, stretching to accommodate your fingers, you give her time to adjust before moving them.

"This is payback, Root. You knew those bruises would show in all of my swimsuits. So now I'm gonna mark you up a little."

"Yes," Root hisses, "graffiti me like the Berlin wall."

"I love your similes," you say, circling your thumb along her fragile ribcage. 

As you suck a hickey into the side of her neck, she squirms and wriggles into you. 

"Sameen..." 

She still says your name like it's a prayer, and you answer her with your lips and fingers and the warm pressure of your body on top of hers.

You wake up Christmas morning all tangled up in Root. She's sprawled all over the bed, and mostly on you, and she's drooling on your bare chest.

It should be gross. It should make you feel trapped, dirty, annoyed, angry, infringed-on, or at the very least, tense. The rare mornings after in your sex life have always been awkward disasters without exception, until Root. You've been waking up together for some time now, but Root has never migrated over onto you in the night. She needs her space almost more than you need yours. This meshed-together position feels very honeymoony. Very "we just made love for the first time," virgins quoting poetry, moonlight dolphin rides-y... Like something you would be deeply put off with, something that would make you feel crowded, claustrophobic, even with Root (maybe especially with Root because of how closely entwined she is with all the other parts of your life). 

Instead, with Root's heartbeat aligned with your own and the tropical sun lilting through the drapes and casting a warm, early morning glow on both of you, you feel relaxed, a little horny, a lot content... and still kind of sleepy, even with another person's head pressing down on your chest.

You run your hand up Root's naked back and through her hair, which has taken in a little bit of salt water and feels nice and wild under your fingers. You avoid her ear because it's her bad one and she hates it when anyone touches it, even you.

Root shifts, still in some dream. One of her legs pins yours down and her arms are spread out like she fell asleep mid-snow-angel.

You must drift off for a minute because when you wake up again, Root is in the same position, but awake and playing some kind of game with your belly button. It involves poking and tickling. you're not enthused.

"Hey,"

Root glances up at you, "morning." 

You feel her move, preparing to climb off you. You fasten your arm around her back.

"Wait, stay."

"Bathroom. Don't worry, Sweetie, I'll be right back."

True to her word, Root returns in a few minutes. You pull her onto you. 

"Put your head on my chest again. I like that."

Root sighs and you can feel her body melt against yours.

"After breakfast, we're gonna steal some jetskis" Root says. 

"Steal or rent?"

"Steal." The quirk in her eyebrow says "obviously."

"What are we going to do with stolen jetskis?"

"There's a little island not far off this one. I thought you might want to hang out with some poisonous snakes and alligators."

"Why would I want to do that"

Root whispers conspiratorially, "So we can have sex while nature's most dangerous reptiles, outside of Wallstreet, look on in awe and intimidation."

"Oh." That actually sounds pretty hot.

Root nods sagely. You prop your head up on the pillows so you can look at her, looking at you. 

After a moment, Root breaks her stare and focuses on the mirror across from the bed instead. 

"No, don't." You hear yourself say, "Look at me,"

She returns her gaze to yours tentatively. Root's wide brown eyes trace the contours of your face, the corners of her eyes creasing. 

All this eye contact. It feels different, it feels easier. 

Just like you figured out pretty quickly after her stapedectomy that Root doesn't like people standing on her deaf side, Root figured out after about your second time fucking that too much eye contact makes you uncomfortable. It's not that you mind feeling close to another person, it's just that all the eye to eye staring is a reminder of all the things the other person's feeling and you're not. You know that when a man or a woman looks into your eyes, they expect to see... Something. A Something that isn't there. Like looking into a mirror and not seeing a reflection. It makes you feel itchy inside, inadequate and bothered. Root is always careful to focus on a point just to the side of your face, or not stare at you too long at all during sex, because she knows.

You run your hand down Root's silky skin, rest it on her hip.

"I like this."

"Sexcation Bahamas Edition? mm, me too."

"Well yeah, but I like THIS, lying here. With you."

You don't want Root to say anything to that, so you slip your hand down between her thighs and cup her, gently. 

She smiles sweetly up at you, shifting so her bodyweight is more fully on top of you and you can feel her pressing down against your upturned palm.

"I'm gonna make you feel so good," you threaten.

Root moves so her face is level with your head, she kisses your jaw delicately.

"Oh Sameen, you do,"

You stroke her softly, slowly, too slowly, like you're not going anywhere. Your fingers toy with her and Root just keeps getting wetter and wetter, pressing into you for more friction. She makes little contented sighs and moans in the back of her throat, shoves her face into the space between your neck and shoulder. It's hot and endearing all at once.

"Have you ever come just from this?" you ask, fingers idling. 

"Not that I can remember," 

Root makes a desperate mewling noise into your neck as you find a particularly sensitive place and draw your fingers over it again and again.

"Good, we're going to change that."

You circle her folds at a pace that is just firm enough to keep her warmed up and not fast or hard enough to get her where she really wants to go. Your fingers play, casually, with her. it's sticky and warm and soft. You want to make Root have a sweet orgasm- something that has nothing to do with the force of your thrusts or the aggression of your desire, a nice, slow build. You want to make her feel good for as long as possible before it ends. You don't say this, but you realize that might as well be your goal for your entire relationship, and not just this morning.

Root rocks against you. You tug at her with your free arm until she slides up enough for you to lavish her breasts with your mouth, softly tease her nipples with your tongue.

Root gasps as you apply more gentle pressure between her legs. She grabs your jaw roughly and demands your mouth; you kiss her, messy and forever. 

Root twitches and shoves herself down against your fingers,

"Harder."

"Not yet."

"Sameen..."

 

"Root," you pout at her, "trust me."

You slide your fingers up and down her clit, not just the protruding tip, but the part beneath the surface of her skin that is just as sensitive and even deeper. It takes a lot longer like this, your fatiguing wrist reminds you. Every time Root starts getting desperate and forceful, you slow down again. It's not about power, you just... really want to enjoy this moment together, connecting like this, for as long as can. You know when Root comes and it's over, you'll be showering and getting breakfast and speeding through the day. But this, right now, it's one of those slow moments that you hope will flare out in your memory into a tiny eternity, Root's fingers digging into your sides, her whimpers ringing in your ears, her body warm and wet and as familiar as a second skin against yours.

You stare at Root's face and watch pleasure dance across it. Root looks deep into your eyes, waiting for you to turn away or revoke your invitation, but you just look back, wondering what she sees in your flat gaze, in you. You watch the morning light make gold and hazel sparks flick along Root's corneas. She's so pretty, so intelligent, so strong...

Whatever she thinks all this eye contact means, you can handle. Whatever she thinks this means, she's probably right. 

Root trembles with the tension you're stringing through her. Her legs buck against yours and she presses down against you, hard and demanding in a hungry rhythm. Root works up a sweat, so do you. Finally you know you can't put it off anymore, if she doesn't come soon she'll flip. You apply just a little more pressure, just there, and Root comes. When she comes, she shivers hard and you swear you can feel it ripple through her whole body. She pulses under your touch, her eyes flutter shut, and she loses her breath completely.

"oh?! ohh..." is all Root says, falling silent against your chest for a solid seven minutes. 

You rest your hand, sore and wet, but protective, against the tenderest part of her body. The rest of her clings onto you, all sticky skin and deep, sated sighs. You glance at the nightstand radio clock. You spent forty five minutes drawing her toward one orgasm. It might just be the best forty five minutes you've ever spent doing anything. 

Root can't even open her eyes.

"We'll miss breakfast," you tell her, your stomach rumbles in agreement.

Root shakes her head. You can hear little hitches in her breathing.

"Are you ok?"

"That was really intense" she says into the side of your breast. "I need a minute,"

You wrap your arms snug around Root's back, watching the rise and fall of her shoulders as her breathing evens out. She can have all the minutes she wants.


	9. promises

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> smut. a little conversation about feels. Root in panties. smut.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I have no excuse for this chapter. I just wanted them to have more sex before I ended the story. If smut's not your thing, you can skip this and not miss too much plot-wise.  
> ... 
> 
> "The great revelation had never come. The great revelation perhaps never did come. Instead there were little daily miracles, illuminations, matches struck unexpectedly in the dark; here was one "  
> -To the Lighthouse, Virginia Woolf
> 
> ...

"Have you seen my Zanotti stilettos?" 

Root's voice filters out from your (her) closet, where she's currently digging through her obnoxious boot collection. Root owns nearly as many pairs of boots as you do weapons, and she's almost as deadly in them as you are with a beretta or a nano. Tonight, Root is dressing for a regatta you have to attend under cover. As her muscle, and date, you have to wear a suit with weapons pockets and a bulletproof vest and it's stuffy and too, too butch. Root gets to look all pretty, but she hasn't even put her dress on yet, just some silky, dark blue lingerie... when she's all bent over like she is now, the view is more than distracting.

"No." 

"Are you sure?" 

"Yes."

"Because the last time I lost them, right before that NYPD banquet we had to infiltrate, they turned up a week later in a plastic bag in your gun locker."

"I don't know anything about that."

"But Sweetie, no one else even has a key to your gun locker."

"That's not true, Bear does."

Root turns and stands and pouts at you.

"Shaw."

You shrug.

She pouts harder. She does the eyes.

You stare at her, unblinking.

"Boots, now!" she says sternly, bringing her foot down, like you'd do to startle a naughty dog into submission, and damned if that doesn't turn you on just a little bit. 

You roll your eyes and fish around under the bed, finally pulling out the plastic bag holding the damn boots. They're six-inch stilettos, they cling to Root's calves and just barely kiss the underside of her knees. She doesn't need the extra height or the nasty pinch of the heels that rub her achilles tendons raw every damn time she wears them.

"If you're wearing those, at least put bandaids on the backs of your feet first."

"What?"

"They fuck up your feet. So, put a bandaid on or something. For... you know, the chafing."

Root tips her head to one side, a smug smile spreading across her face.

"Sameen.... Do you keep hiding these boots because they hurt my feet?"

"No."

"Really?" 

"You have other boots, ones that are better for missions..."

"You are -so- cute."

You glower. Cute is a forbidden word in your apartment and she's lived there long enough to know that.

Root can see she's irked you, so she slinks over and presses her fingertips to your sternum, pressing you back until you're propped up on your elbows, sprawled diagonally across the unmade bed.

"Wanna make out?" She asks, all sweet and playful.

"Yeah, ok. We've got half an hour to kill."

Root grabs you and utterly dominates your mouth with hers. Her hands wander your abs and play naughty games with your nipples. She teases you, you refuse to yield. 

Finally, Root slips one hand down your body and into the scratchy dress pants you put on for this dumb event. She finds your panties and hovers close but not close enough until you grow impatient and arch yourself up into her touch. She grins and firmly squeezes your sex. 

"Mmm, when we get home tonight, after I thoroughly spank you for stealing my boots, I'm going to get out that new strap-on and ride you until those big, soulful eyes of yours roll back in your head."

"Oh, fuck, yes," you breathe.

Root never makes a sex promise she doesn't keep. You know you'll be walking funny for at least a day and you can't wait. Knowing that it will be hours and hours of anticipation and coy glances and Root getting deplorably handsy and making sly kinky comments all night long just makes you wetter and more desperate. 

"We have time, why don't we do a little pre-gaming right now?"

"Did I say that was part of the plan?"

"nuh uh."

"Mm. Well then... You'll wait, you'll simmer, and you'll enjoy it, Sameen. Because you're in a lot of trouble later."

"Yeah?"

"Yeah."

And with that, Root bites your ear, hard enough to make you hiss in surprise. Then she promptly grazes her tongue along the shell of said ear. Before climbing off you completely and slipping into her evening wear.

"If you're really good tonight, I might let you lick these later," she grins and flaunts a leather-clad foot at you.

You roll your eyes and shake your head. Never gonna happen. Boot licking isn't your thing, or hers, but it's sweet that she offered.

She always offers. That's the thing with Root, she's always coming up with new things to do, games to play, toys and positions and kinks to test out. Like she wants to make sure every desire you never knew you had is being met.

So many other, past sex partners were fine with your more basic, commonplace kinks, enthusiastic, even. But nobody understands quite like Root. Root just gets it, about pain and pleasure and testing limits. Root doesn't need to be told that liking to be pushed around in the bedroom (weapons locker, surveillance van, abandoned warehouse, wherever) has absolutely no bearing on who you are outside of that context. Root is cool with punishing you, hard, during sex because it feels so good; Root is cool with your desire to bite and mark and rough her up a little. Root is your match, when it comes to sex: hungry, ferocious, and wholly unafraid. She has claws and she uses them, she's not timid about using them on you, and you appreciate that. 

You love the way she destroys you, lets you destroy her. You love waking up next to her sated body in the morning, after all the destruction. When you see the fingerprints and bite marks and rope burns, the tender bruises on your ass and the outline of your hands on the tops of her thighs, when you can still feel the echo of her touch inside you, you feel like the detritus of the destruction you wreak on each other somehow makes you both more complete. 

You would never share this with Root. She would get smug and arrogant, more so than usual, if you confessed just how much you think about your relationship.

It's bad enough that Root slides her hand up your thigh and rubs evil patterns on your leg and higher all through the regatta dinner. It's bad enough she corners you in the bathroom, after you finally hand your number over to Fusco for processing, and sucks a harsh mark onto your neck, barely letting you touch her at all. You're a strung out mess by the time you get home, hours later. You're wet and aching by the time you dance her out of her lovely, inky blue dress, and somehow manage to escape your pants and shirt.

Root takes one look at your eyes, the pupils of which are doubtless totally blown out, and beams like she's won an award. She perches, prim and delicate, on the edge of the bed. Even stark naked and sitting on your rumpled up blankets, Root is a commanding and captivating presence. You drink in her pale skin and soft lines. She smirks and beckons you over.

"I think I promised you a spanking." Her voice dips into that soft, sweet, threating range that makes you shiver through and through.

Your blood hums at the prospect of one of Root's spankings.

"Yeah, you did." 

"Come here," she orders, tugging you over her lap. You don't put up a fight (you could, and you'd win too, but what would be the fun in that?).

She runs her hands along the backs of your thighs, up along the curve of your butt. It's all too delicate, too light. You want her hands and you want them hard and fast and now.

"Root" you demand, so shamelessly, "no teasing tonight,"

"I wouldn't dream of it," Root assures you, landing a smack on your ass. 

It stings for a mere second before fading to a sweet, warm, tingle. She smacks you again, but the flicker of pain is still only a coy shadow of what you want, what you need. 

 

"Harder,"

"You're just calling all the shots tonight aren't you?"

"Just spank me already."

"That's my feisty little power bottom. Always in need of an attitude adjustment."

You groan, these little lectures are so annoying.

"Now Sameen," Root simpers, giving you a nice, firm smack, "This is for your own good. Stealing my boots is wrong, and we punish wrong-doers. We punish them good and hard and-hey, stop squirming. Now, try and hold still or I'll have to restrain you." 

A few smacks later she finally tells you to reach under the bed for whichever spanking implement is closest. 

She takes the wooden paddle you offer her and sighs dramatically, "Remember, sweetie, this hurts you more than it hurts me."

Neither of you can keep from chuckling. 

The spanking is over too soon, leaving you warmed up and wanting. Root guides you up onto the bed, presses your back into the cool sheets, spikes your desire with a deep kiss.

"Grab the headboard and don't let go," she instructs.

You half expect her to ziptie or handcuff you, but she doesn't. She starts laving hot, wet kisses and bites along your neck instead. 

Ever since learning that Samaritan had kept you chained to a hospital bed for months on end, Root has been leery of handcuffing you to anything. Sometimes though, like tonight, you long for the freedom of being able to give up control and pull as hard as you want on handcuffs or rope or whatever in the midst of an orgasm. 

"Handcuff me." You beg, "Just for tonight, Root."

Root studies you and chews on the corner of her lip for a minute. She finally nods and digs some simple metal cuffs out of your nightstand. It's been a long time. Your mouth waters a little at the thought of being able to just lose yourself in tugging at them, of the marks they'll leave on you for days. 

"Safeword?" Root asks, cuffing first your right and then your left wrist to the top of the bed frame.

"Worcestershire." 

"Promise you'll use it if you need to?"

"I promise. God, fuck me already."

Root pinches one of your nipples, punishment for your insolence.

"Wait your turn. I already had to do all that hard work, spanking your naughty ass, I think I deserve some gratitude, and..." 

She climbs up your body until she's hovering over your face, pinning your torso between her knees, your arms stretched out and tackled to the headboard. 

She pats your head lovingly,

"If you want to come, you're going to have to earn it." 

You think it's pretty unfair, making you eat her out without letting you use your hands, but you tilt your face up anyway. Root makes the rules when you play these games, and it always benefits you to obey them.

Root gracefully lowers her body until she's close enough for you to reach with your mouth. You start out by biting her, sharp and hard, on the inner thigh, sucking a hickey onto the tender, soft skin there. Root lets out a mew of pleasure as you attack the other thigh, biting and licking both sides in turn as you compose a symphony of pleasure and pain, drawing more and more toward the pleasure side of things as you get closer and closer to her sex.

Root is so wet. So, so wet. She smells aromatic and heady, with that deep, purely Root smell that hits you first in the nose and then directly in the groin. You realize as you lick and suck at her folds and work your way up to her clit, that the night of foreplay must have worked her up as much as it did you. You look up at Root. The slight swell of her stomach, her super-sensitive belly button, that delicate line up her torso to her small breasts that sway ever so slightly as she rocks against you. The angles of her jaw and chin and nose, the fall of her hair... Her forehead, crinkling as she screws her eyes shut and licks her lips and rides your face.

You imagine painting her from this angle. Your tongue imitates brush strokes against her and she gasps a little. You wish you could show her how powerful and strong and hot she looks, her lanky arms from underneath, the soft tuft of dark hair closely guarding her sex, all of it. You moan against her pussy as you devote your attentions to her clit, shifting and rubbing your own thighs together too. You worship Root from below until your jaw aches and she's rocking frantically against you, guiding the back of your head with one hand and death-gripping your shoulder with the other.

"Oh fuck," Root says after several minutes, digging her fingers into your shoulder -hard- and shuddering to a stop on top of you. 

She flops to the side, sated, and watches you writhe and pant and try to give yourself just a little friction where you need it most.

After a minute, Root wipes your face off and rewards you with another messy, wet kiss. Her nose collides with your cheek, which is still damp with her arousal; she smirks and licks the corner of your mouth.

"That was so hot," you say, breathless. 

"I love riding your face. Almost as much as I love riding you."

"That where this is goin'?"

She winks at you, and disappears from the bed, emerging from the closet a few minutes later with a new harness and an impressive and sizable piece of sleek, black hardware strapped into it. You know she must have bought it just for you because there's no way Root could ever handle that kind of penetration. Sweet, thoughtful, nymphomaniac Root. 

She grins her most wolfish grin at you, as she digs a bottle of lube out of your nightstand and slowly slicks the entire shaft.

"I believe I promised you a fucking so sound your eyes would roll back in your head?"

"I like a woman who keeps her word."

Root slinks up the bed, slowly, letting you watch the dildo sway ever so slightly between her hips.

"I'm going to absolutely RUIN you," she promises, gleefully.

But first, she runs two fingers up and down your sex, gathering moisture, rubbing firmly at your clit. Root warms up the dildo by pumping it slowly with one hand, like it's a dick or something. With her other hand, she fingers you, slowly, firmly, insistently.

You squirm up into her fingers.

"God, Root, please."

"Gotta make sure you're ready sweetie."

"Fuck, I can take it. I want it to to hurt a little. Just get inside me already."

Root shrugs and tugs at your knees until you bring them up almost to your chest. You're wide open for her, and she experimentally curls three fingers in you. Nowhere near enough-- you want the dildo that you can feel pressing against your thigh, warmed up and slippy from Root's masturbatory pumping motions. You want her to fuck you with it. Now.

"Root," you demand

"Patience, Shaw," she says, and slowly enters you with the tip.

Root presses in, deeper and deeper. You feel yourself filling up, stretching elastically to take every millimeter; the strap-on creates a warm, heavy link between your body and Root's. She smirks. She squeezes brutally at your freshly-punished ass cheeks. It smarts so sweetly... You can feel her slightest movements echoing through the dildo inside you. Your wrap your legs around her waist, drawing her in, squeezing hard. You arch your spine as Root draws the length out of you slowly and then plunges back in. 

"Oh, Sameen, you look so hot like this."

Root grazes her nails up and down your ribs. Your vision fogs up, lust and pain and pleasure obscuring everything else from your consciousness.

Root fucks you, deep and hard, just like you wanted. Your legs shake and you pull fiercely at the handcuffs, loving the burn in your shoulders, the faint stinging in your ass, and the raw feeling of all that thickness inside you. Root braces herself with hands her on either side of your shoulders, face close to yours, her gaze wandering up every now and then to your cuffed wrists, then back down to your eyes. You grin at her.

"I'm mmmm... having such a good time tonight," you admit.

"Me too," 

She 'winks' at you.

Someday, you're going to have to tell Root that she can't actually wink. Today is not that day, though.

Root kisses you, more bite than kiss, as she ruts into you. You're vaguely aware that with each thrust, you make a wanton "unnhh" noise, which becomes louder and louder as she fucks you, until you're just straight up moaning. It really doesn't get any better than this.

Until Root reaches down and starts playing with your clit, while riding you hard and fast.

The rhythm and pressure build to a fever pitch inside you. The dildo is firm and slick and you can hear the faint suction noise of the rubber base as it wetly smacks against Root's labia and clit with each thrust. You really hope it feels good for her- it feels so good to you, pressing between your legs, so full and so deep. You feel the metal cuffs digging into your flesh, into the wooden crosspiece of your headboad. You can feel Root inside you, with every part of your body: the base of your spine rolls with pleasure, your leg muscles tighten, your fingertips tingle, you pull hard at the handcuffs. It feels so good to let your body go, to jerk and twist and grip with every muscle as the absolute tidal wave of your orgasm breaks. 

The faint splintering noise and the sudden looseness in your arms alarms you, before you're fully finished. Your hands are suddenly not anchored to the headboard: they're in front of your face, and there are wood fragments on your chest and lodged in the links of the still-locked handcuffs... Root silently laughs at you as you look from hand to hand, bewildered.

"Sweetie," she says, not even bothering to stifle her amusement as she brushes sweaty strands of your hair out of your eyes, snags a sliver of shattered wood off your face, "you broke the headboard." 

You're a little bit at a loss for words. You stare down your body: your legs are still wrapped around Root's waist, your inner walls are still gripping and fluttering sporadically around the strap-on inside you, and your clit feels tender, sore almost. You're pretty sure at some point you must have blacked out a little bit.

"Mmmmphh," you finally manage as Root uncuffs you and kisses the skin of your newly bruised, very raw wrists.

"Your eyes rolled back in your head, as promised," she whispers in your ear.

Root shifts, preparing to remove the dildo from you, you grab her hand. 

"Stay inside me for a minute," you request. 

Root gently unfolds your legs, lets your bodies slowly come to rest, still joined together by the strap-on. She helps you roll onto your side, so you're facing each other, legs tangled together and both of your hips gently rolling and pushing against each other.

You let out a shaky breath.

"I think... I'm going to come again," you warn her.

Root just smiles fondly as you rock your body into hers, as you clutch at her back and come an impossibly intense second time. When she finally does pull out, you feel empty inside. Root reaches between your bodies and covers you with her hand. You shiver.

"Does it hurt?" She whispers.

"Yeah, but in the best way."

Root will never be as big a fan of hardcore penetration as you are, but she sure is a fan of being deep inside you, making you squirm and come.

"You're so sensitive right now," she muses.

"Mmm, well, you fucked me speechless and blind, what'd you expect?"

"With you, I never know."

She draws the sheet up over your bodies and you fall asleep.

The next afternoon, Root sneaks up on your stake-out and catches you absent-mindedly sucking on a raw spot on the side of your wrist, leftover from the handcuffs (in your defence, it's soothing and you're bored). Root clears her throat and raises one eyebrow and smirks, all smug and self-congratulatory. Makes you want to punch her a little.

"Shut up," you say.

"Doesn't Harry threaten to whack Bear with a newspaper when he starts licking at his feet?"

"No. Harold would never hit Bear. And don't you get any ideas, Root."

"So a whip or a paddle is fine, but we draw a hard line at newspapers? Good to know."

You sulk.

Root smirks again and drops a tube of bacitracin into your lap.

"That should ease the sting, baby." 

You don't even realize you forgot to scold her for calling you "baby" until an hour after she has pressed a gentle kiss to the side of your head and traipsed off to do the machine's bidding. 

That night, when Root can pretend she thinks you're asleep, she whispers at you:

"You're like my faithful guard dog, Shaw. I should get you a collar. A leather one. With studs. You'd look so hot."

"Unless you want to sleep on the couch from now on, you'll forget you ever said that"

Root chuckles.

"Anyway," you add, "if anyone is a faithful dog in this situation, it's you. Always putting your hand on me, like Bear puts his foot on Harold. Trying to steal my foods. Always chewing on me like I'm a chew toy. Way too fond of sticking your face in people's junk."

"Not people's junk! Just yours ... Do you want me to wear a leather collar, Sameen? Maybe a leash to go with it?"

The idea is kind of hot. Root's long, pale, elegant neck would look pretty sexy in a dark leather collar. You reach across the bed and lightly grip her throat, her pulse remains steady and calm under your fingers. She trusts you that much. You drag your thumb across the soft skin of her neck. No, you would never want Root to be reduced to a possession. Not your's, not anybody's.

"I don't believe in ownership." You remind her, and yourself.

"I know, sweetie. I love that about you."

"Hmph." 

You pat Root's head and take your hand back. She's so weird, and you're so into it.

Root falls asleep not long after, and the moonlight coming through your window lights her face, making an ethereal glow on her pale skin, like she's an angel of death or something .

When she sleeps, truly, deeply sleeps, you sometimes run your finger along the contours of Root's face. You know it's creepy, but you know she does it to you too (because you're really good at pretending to be asleep). It's one of those weird couple's quirks, you guess, since sharing food and making scrapbooks will never be your style. Secret nighttime face molestation is about as cute as you get. 

You let the tiniest tip of the pad of your littlest finger-- the one that still has some fingerprint left on it, wander from the curve of her jaw to the peak of Root's good ear. Root says you have elf ears. She likes to pull on them, playfully. But her ears remind you of shells. Delicate shells stolen away from the water. With the voice of an entirely different kind of ocean in them. 

You especially love her nose. It's almost a fetish, how sexy you think her nose is, the long, clean, Patrician line of it, the sharp angle, the way it is the arrogant statement piece, reigning over the rest of her proud face. When she goes down on you, and you look down at her face, the slope of her forehead, and that gorgeous nose.... you lose yourself a little. 

You let your finger linger on her temple and marvel at all the sleeping power, more fearsome and limitless than the most advanced and unleashed technology, ruthless and brilliant, mere centimeters beyond your touch. 

Touching someone not for sex or violence or medicine is relatively new to you. You had to learn to be ok with Root's hand constantly resting on your lower back, with her bicep squeezes, with casual pats and hugs and hands stuffed in your back pockets, obsessively groping your ass. All those times when she'd coquettishly toy with your hair or the buttons of your coat. You had to learn to enjoy the steady presence of her body intersecting with yours.

You have your own ways of reaching out. You're not very tactile, but you know Root appreciates it. You sit closer to her, you always walk beside her, and you rest one hand on her leg, whenever you can. She gets really bright-eyed about that. In bed, you adjust to occasionally waking up with parts of her long-limbed frame flung over you.

You learn to always walk with your hand out of your pocket and free by your side, so she can grab it if she wants. She almost never does, but sometimes you catch her looking over with a tiny smile twisting at the corner of her mouth, like she knows she could hold your hand if she wanted to. Like the tacit permission is enough. 

You learn that she loves it when you lace your fingers through hers. In the bathroom, you have two sinks, but you always crowd her at hers. Root likes these gestures. Maybe they show her how much of yourself you're willing to give. You want to give Root what you can. Because she's already given you more than you think you can ever match, and you know it would matter to her. 

You know you matter to her.

Sometimes, though, you wonder if it's enough to sustain a relationship.

You work this number together, you have to get a husband and wife into witsec before a local gang ices them. You end up taking a bullet graze to the arm for the wife. No big deal. Routine job, you've done it before. But, you end up having to drive them all the way from Newark to a private federal marshall shuttle pickup near Penn station in your armored Sedan. 

Actually, Root drives. They chat with her while you sleep. Because you got shot and you had to run six miles for stupid reasons earlier. Because conversations aren't your thing unless they involve guns or axe kicks.

In your tired fog, slumped in the very back of the car, you start to wake up after a few hours and vaguely register Root murmuring to the wife in the front seat.

"-- that, too, but she's so quiet and serious and smart," Root says softly, "when we met, I just felt right at home in her silence, so grounded by her seriousness, and of course, I was superbly challenged by her intellect-"

The wife says something you don't quite catch and you try to chase after the sweet darkness of sleep, but it's too late, you're awake. 

"and we've been together ever since," the wife says.

"Fourteen years," the husband chimes in, "and when do you think your little lady is going to propose?"

"Never. We don't believe in marriage, that it's the right choice, for us, I mean." 

The husband says something like "put a ring on it" and the wife coos about commitment.

"Well," Root sighs, a big, deep, totally fake sigh, "Sameen is Muslim, culturally anyway, and I'm agnostic, so we can never get married in the truly religious sense, but we've learned to accept it."

You bite hard on the inside of your cheek to keep from laughing. Root's such a dick. You love it.

The husband falls quiet, but the wife goes on about feelings, about how she just "knew" her husband was "the one," while Root hums in appreciation in the background. You don't know what the hell this woman's talking about, or how anybody as obsessed with romance novel levels of existence could ever be a useful witness in any sort of criminal case.

The husband's no better. He heckles you for being quiet, as you stand around waiting for the feds to unload their luggage from your car. 

"Still rivers run deep, huh?"

"What?" You decide it's not too late to shoot him, or maybe just sprain him a little.

"Anyway-" apparently he didn't hear you interrupt- "For saving Jeannette from that hitman earlier? I wanted to say thanks. It wouldn't have been worth it to keep living without her." 

He appraises you and Root, standing scant feet apart, "well... You must know how it feels when your soul mate is in danger.. y'know," He nods in her direction. 

Root is helping his wife put her coat on, but she hears. You know she hears because her neck and ears start to blush and she won't look at you.

It makes you mad, as the couple leaves with the feds, hand in hand with each other, and you and Root stand together a few yards off, watching. It makes you mad because soulmate is a stupid fucking word and this guy has clearly been watching too much hallmark channel. It makes you mad that you don't "know" what he meant, that you don't feel some kind of THING inside yourself when you think about Root. It makes you mad that she more than likely feels some kind of big THING about you. And you can neither understand nor reciprocate. All you can do is follow her around and take care of her, protect her like some big dumb guard dog. Well, that and give her orgasms. 

It makes you mad that Root doesn't even look at you, that she doesn't want to upset you, so her feelings end up getting squished down. It isn't fair. 

You kick the front tire of a parked SUV, hard enough that your foot awkwardly bounces off the rubber. You scowl and hastily start walking away.

"I got some stuff to do. I'll see you later," you call back at Root. 

It's cold and you don't know where you left your gloves, so you jam your hands into your pockets as you walk. It takes you five blocks to notice that Root is tailing you, and three more to get mad enough to stop and wait for her to catch up.

"I said I have stuff to do," you growl.

"I know," 

"So can you give me some space?"

"I can. And I will, but you left these in my bag," 

Root pulls your gloves out of her inner coat pocket, warm from her body heat, and hands them over.

"Didn't want your paws to get cold."

"Fine. Thanks." 

You're willing to leave it at that, but Root keeps walking alongside you.

"I know why you're mad," she says.

"I'm not mad. I just..."

"I heard what he said. It was stupid. People like them don't get it, don't get people like us."

"People like us? You mean people like me."

"I mean intellectuals, Sam-"

"No, Root, because you're occasionally crazy and unstable, but you're not a sociopath. You have all these different emotions, I see them in your body language. I can hear it when you talk. You feel things for people, for the machine, even, and for me; you can feel that you love me and I can't even tell for sure if I--"

Root grabs your arms and forces you to hold still and listen. 

"Love isn't a feeling, Shaw. It isn't."

You shake your head and half-heartedly try to brush her off. Root won't let you wriggle away though.

"Did you think it was?"

You shrug. "I guess,"

Root shakes her head, her eyes warm and her lips tweaking away a smile. You know that look means fond exasperation.

"Love is this, this discussion, right now. That you care enough to be having with me." 

She gestures at the air between your bodies.

"Love is sharing a bed and waking up together- those one am phone calls just to check in, and thinking about each other when we're apart. Love is good code. It's you moving me into your apartment and letting me be a real part of your life. It's me getting you scotch and you buying me soy milk, even though you believe soy milk is a harbinger of the end of civilization- and it's us doing laundry, buying toilet paper and dish soap, and sweeping the kitchen. It's jumping into gunfire for each other and you pulling me back from my dark impulses and me trying not to be too possessive. Love is... us ... having secrets together and not judging each other. It's those damn pancakes you keep trying to teach me how to make. It's simple, it's common, it's trivial, it's..." she loses steam.

"Everything?" you finish for her.

Root nods. You study her face- the furiously pink tops of her cheeks, the corners of her eyes that are glistening from the sharp wind and maybe, a little bit, from how worked up she is.

"' 's it that time you stuck a needle in my neck?" 

She nods.

"And when I stayed up all night with you because we thought you might be poisoned?"

"Yes."

"Love is when you stole me that flame thrower?"

"Yeah,"

"And when I rappelled down the side of the building with you monkeying on my back?"

"That too."

"The Stock Exchange?"

"Sameen,"

"Were you planning on telling me we were in love? Or were you gonna make me figure it out for myself?"

Root scrunches her face at you.

"I wasn't going to say anything. Honest. I thought you knew. For someone so brilliant, you can be just a tiny bit obtuse when it comes to your own self."

"And everyone else knows? Finch? Reese? ... Fusco?"

Root nods some more.

"I don't know, Root. How can you be so sure those things are, y'know, 'Love'? Don't you feel something? Aren't I supposed to feel something, anything?"

What she says puts to rest every question, every worry, you ever had about Root's expectations for you, for your relationship.

Root squeezes your arms and tips her head down so she's staring straight into your eyes. She's not playing.

"You're supposed to feel like you. Just like you."

She leans into your space until you can see the fog of her breath curling around the fog of yours.

"There isn't any mythic feeling, Sameen. This is it." 

Behind her, a street camera blinks steadily from a building corner. A dog barks somewhere.

You look up at Root, study her wide, dark eyes, her pink, chapped lips. She smiles lightly at you and brushes her palms up and down your biceps. Root is so sure of you, of how she feels about you, of how she thinks you feel about her. But you, you're like a giant question mark inside. You know you have reactions when it come to Root. But you don't fully understand what any of them mean.

You remember watching Root dart around the apartment this morning, unaware that she had a streak of toothpaste on her shirt. When you look at her now, in her classy black trench coat and high boots, you feel the same as you did this morning, when her hair was in a messy bun and she had her dorky lesbian librarian glasses on. You feel content. Secure. Amused, even. Your curiosity is piqued, like it always is around Root. You feel strong and ready and confident as fuck. Root pretty much always makes you feel like that, although most of the time annoyance is the main thing that registers. That's a lot of different little feelings. 

"Ok," you finally say, "I can accept that." 

Root's face jumps a little, but she just nods and wisely keeps her mouth shut as she leads you away from the street corner and in the direction of The Waffle Iron. 

"I'm buying you breakfast," she announces, "because emotions make you hungry. And we're going to stop all this worrying about what we should or shouldn't be feeling."

You walk a few paces in silence before Root adds, "AND we're going to re-evaluate this 'no cats in the apartment' policy of yours."


	10. two parts of the same animal

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Root and Shaw have some angst and a cuddle.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> trigger warnings, I guess: infidelity, biting, possibly unwanted sexual contact.
> 
> i promise this story overall will have minimal angst, but i felt it was important to show the parts of their relationship that want some processing and figuring out.
> 
> sidenote: I taught this show in the sci-fi class i teach and a few of my undergrads are now diehard POI fans (and hopefully Shoot shippers). yay to spreading the good word!

As you're rounding out the winter, Root comes back from one particular mission extra quiet. She showers, leaving her travel-worn clothes in a pile on the bedroom floor, and curls up in the windowsill, wearing only sweat pants and a thin cotton tee shirt, despite the draft. She doesn't tip her head to the side and listen, even though the machine is probably trying to get her attention (if the constant buzzing from her phone is anything to go by). 

Root stays silent and immobile for hours.

You keep an eye on her. She sits and stares out until the city shadows grow long and the sun dips low at the tops of the buildings. You bring her a cup of Harold-style tea. She smiles with her mouth but not her eyes, and wraps her pale hands around it. Her nail polish is gone; three of her nail beds and the knuckles above them are deeply bruised.

You brush one finger across her damaged skin. When Root turns away, back to the window, you step up behind her, framing her back with your body, letting your heat seep into her chilled skin. You don't ask her what happened. Where she went or what she did. You figure she'll say, when she's ready. 

That night, when you try to wrap your arm around her, Root curls away from you in bed. She looks over her shoulder at you, sorrowfully, and you reach out and put your palm on her hip. Root sighs and drops her hand on top of yours, weaving her fingers through yours. You wait for her to speak but she doesn't say anything.

You're not worried, exactly, because you do trust Root to tell you if she's hurt. But at the same time, the idea of her keeping something bad and hurtful inside, trying to fix it on her own, when you have a perfectly good pair of ears and you care about her... that makes you gnaw on your lower lip in frustration. Next to you, Root sighs heavily and sputters out a wet little breath. Neither of you falls asleep for a long time. 

The next morning Root rolls out of bed at five. When you go to join her in her second shower in less than 24 hours, you find she has locked the bathroom door. You're not pleased. Your showers together are something you've learned to enjoy: slowly waking up under the stream of water, getting clean and sharing shower gel, sometimes washing each other, reveling in the quiet comfort of being naked together. 

You plop back into bed and scowl at the steam wafting out from under the locked door. Root's shutting you out and you don't know what to do. You wish you had some pancakes.

When she finally emerges, wrapped in a bathrobe and shivering, her hair in wet tendrils down her shoulders, you get up and block her path to the closet. You drag her over to the bed and sit her down. She plays with her terrycloth bathrobe tie and won't look at you.

"Tell me." you say, softly, your fingers finding their way to hers.

She pulls the bathrobe up, just far enough for you to see the distinct outline of a fresh, bruising bite mark, high up on her inner thigh, in what has been exclusively your territory for ages. A cold, white bolt of fire burns through your lungs, down to your fingertips and back.

"What happened?" 

Root shrugs and you can see her trying to wrestle a mask of blithe cheer across her face. 

"Don't do that," you say, "don't pretend, just tell me."

You cup her jaw with one hand and stroke her cheek with your thumb. She looks such a wild mess, gaze darting away from you, eyes red and sunken, lips chapped. You haven't often seen Root looking so frenetic. Not for a long time. Her chaos is usually more channeled, purposeful. Whatever happened- and you don't even want to guess the details- it must have really shaken her.

You blindly grab for your phone and dial Harold.

"Root and I are gonna be off the clock today." You tell him. 

He sputters something disapproving and you cut him off, 

"Women problems, Finch. John, Fusco and one of the newbs can cover for us for one day. You know you're going to have to learn to save the world without us, eventually."

You hang up the call and toss your phone onto the nightstand. 

"Come on," you tell Root.

You haul her up and lead her into the living room. You pull the soft, fleecy blanket off the back of the couch and hold it out in front of you.

"Come here," you say and she lets you wrap it around both of you.

You sit together, cocooned on your couch, and watch the sun come up over the city. Root leans back into your arms, lets you put your legs on either side of her body, like you're a tortoise shell and she's the inside part of the tortoise. You think about that. About how one part of the tortoise would die without the other. You wonder when you and Root became separate parts of the same animal. 

Root remains catatonic for twenty-eight minutes. Finally she glances at you over her shoulder, the same wide-eyed, sorrowful gaze from the night before.

"I fucked someone."

You nod once, slowly, absorbing this information, not sure if you really believe it. This is Root, after all. She adores you.

"A number?"

"An inside trader with some contacts that looked like they were pointing to the next proto-Samaritan endeavor."

"Torture was off the table?"

"I had to build trust, so we could use her again... There was a deadline-"

You stroke Root's arm, your finger running over the flurry of needle mark scars from Control. You don't reply. It shouldn't be a big deal, should it? You've had to sex people up for a job before, too. It's not the best feeling, well it can sometimes be fun, but it's usually a chore.... Then, you can't imagine what an unwanted fuck must be like for someone who attaches emotions and shit to sex. Who attaches emotions and shit to sex with you and you alone.

"Did it suck?"

"It was fast, at least. I made her think it was something I wanted, made her want it... I was convincing, you know how good I am at seduction-- She was attractive-- it's not like I wasn't attracted to her. But then on the plane home, afterwards, I... I don't usually care about stuff like this. I don't know what's wrong with me. " 

You pull Root even closer to you. You cradle her like she's some oversized child confessing a sin. You think about her flirting with some other woman, some other woman touching her, kissing her, biting her, you think about a stranger going down on Root, being inside her. Root, taking it, faking moans and maybe having an orgasm, maybe not (which would be worse?) for the sake of the machine, for the sake of saving the world, yet again. You think about those tender parts of Root's body that you have come to regard as sacred, how simultaneously vulnerable and powerful she looks naked. You think about a faceless stranger having Root, being faceless to you, but very real to Root. 

These thoughts make you uneasy. You wish you had a sandwich.

"What can I do?" you ask, but you already know there's nothing you can do.

"Forgive me," Root whispers.

Forgiveness is a word, like remorse, that you know but don't understand. You never ask for forgiveness. You never forgive because nobody ever hurts you enough- except Samaritan, and instead of forgiving them, you killed them. What does forgiveness even mean and do you have a right to give it to Root if you don't even feel mad at her? 

"I don't think you did anything wrong."

It's one of those walls between you. You know that Root, naked and open and touching you desperately, is something you might not have if Root didn't have those raw, intense, deep feelings for you. It wasn't like that at first, but it is now. You know Root is faithful to you and for her, that means not fucking other people. You return the courtesy because you've decided it would be wrong not to. You want to fuck other people, once in a while, but you chose Root, you choose only her because you figured that was the deal. 

"I'm sorry you had to do that," you tell her. "I wish it had been me instead."

Root shakes her head.

"Aren't you angry?"

"I'm pissed at the machine, for putting you in a situation where you had to compromise yourself like that or fail."

"The Machine didn't make me do it."

"So... you wanted to do it?"

"I don't know. She was hot, I was into it... until I wasn't ... and by then, well, I really needed the info she had. I don't know, Shaw, if I wanted her or not. Sometimes I wish I was more like you and I could fuck anybody and like it and walk away and not care."

But she can't anymore. Because of you. 

"I was like that," you admit, "but now that you're ... leavin' your boots by the door. I guess I don't... I guess, why play around with a whole range of weapons when you'd rather use your favorite gun every time, you know?"

"I'm like your favorite gun?" 

"Well you don't shoot as straight, but yeah."

"We never had that icky conversation did we? About sex with other people..."

"I don't do jealous, Root. And I don't do monogamy. It's not in my wiring. But with you- for you. I figure it's a better deal than anything else I could come up with."

"It's that simple? I'm more important to you than your freedom?"

You resist the urge to growl at her.

"The whole point of freedom is you get to choose what you want. Right now, what I want is a hacker nerdling with big brown eyes and an obsession with apples. Now, stop making this about me and tell me why you're so goddamn upset."

Root shakes her head and slumps against you.

"Just hold me, Shaw."

So you hold her. You ensconce her in your arms, let your hair tumble over her shoulders. You press your heartbeat against her back and you wait for her to match your breathing. You've never felt so close to someone and so distant from them at the same time.

"I'm upset because you're not," Root says after an hour of angry cuddling, "and I want you to be."

"Oh."

You sit and watch the city come to life. 

"Do you think they're worth it?" you ask her, around eight am, "All the people we're destroying ourselves to save?"

"I'm not destroying myself to save their world, not anymore. I'm doing it... I'm doing it to protect ours."

You don't know if that's true. You think Root would do anything at all with her body, if the machine told her to. 

"How is saving some dirty inside trader protecting our world?"

"Because." she says and goes quiet for a long time. "It's a world where we're the good guys."

The word "penance" springs to mind.

"Since when does that matter?" you ask her.

Root sighs. She shifts closer to you and you tighten your grasp around her. She rolls around so she's lying face to face with you, on your chest. You tuck her head under your chin and try not to laugh at the way she has crumpled herself up in an effort to latch on to you. Root talks away from you, her words filling out the blue space of your living room.

"I snapped Martine's neck with my bare hands, three years ago, and I relished it. Because she took you away from me. but killing her didn't bring you back. And then I realized... for so many people, I was just another Martine. Taking away their loved ones for a paycheck, for fun, for amusement."

"You were hotter than Martine."

"Sameen..."

"You liked killing people."

"I was angry." Root squeezes you around the middle, "then I met you."

"And now you've been demoted from chaos demon to casually misanthropic."

"I want to save them." she says, "I want to save anyone who might be someone's Shaw."

"How noble."

Root burrows her face into your chest. You know it's not noble. You know it's kind of sappy, and probably some weird psychological reaction to not knowing if you were alive or dead for almost a year, to feeling guilty. To having feelings, to being capable of having feelings.

You push your nose against Root's good ear. Her hair smells sweet and clean, like apple shampoo and her natural scent.

"You know why I'm not upset?"

"Why?" Root sighs, probably expecting another iteration of your speech about sociopaths not having feelings.

"I'm not upset because I haven't been with anyone but you in almost five years."

"And you're still not bored? I must be good."

"Idiot. You know you are. But. Even if you sucked in bed now, I'd still... I wouldn't... I mean, I appreciate it that you don't sleep with other people. What that means to you. It means something to me too, even if it doesn't come naturally to me. And I hate that the machine put you in that position for a goddamn, stupid mission."

"You're sweet."

"You're mine." The words come out as more of a growl than you intended.

You feel Root's breathing trip when you say this. You've avoided being possessive of her because you like to think that Root isn't anyone's but her own. Possession is so antiquated and patriarchal.

Root is only yours if she wants to be, but this whole crappy situation makes it clear that yeah, she wants to be.

"You're mine," you continue, "in all the ways that matter. That's why I'm not mad at you. That bruise on your leg will fade and so will the memory of fucking some random woman, but you and me..." 

You trace the bullet scar you put on her shoulder all those years ago; you don't need to finish the thought. 

"I'm so in love with you, Shaw" Root whispers.

You kiss the back of her bad ear, gently, carefully. Root never says that sentence like it's one half of an equation and it's up to you to solve the other half. Her love for you stands on its own two legs and it doesn't need you at all, doesn't ask for permission or reciprocity. Her love burns its way through everything, scorches a path through all the fog of Root's chaos and your confusion until everything is bright and clear, and you don't even have to lift a finger.

"I know what you mean."

You can feel the surprise flutter through her body. Usually her "I love yous" are met with silence, eye-rolling, or kisses and orgasms, depending on the day. Never with words.

"You know I don't do feelings," you tell her, "I would, if I could, I think. But my brain..."

"Is perfect the way it is-"

"Is so much less than you deserve,"

"But so much more than I ever could have wanted-"

"Shut up and let me finish. I don't do feelings, Root, but lucky for you- and I guess for me- this thing isn't a feeling. It's like you said a couple weeks ago. It's ... we choose it. I choose you. and that choice is.... bigger than us."

In your reflection in the window, you can see a shimmer in Root's eyes. 

"Are you saying you love me, Sameen?"

"No. I'm saying you're a nerd and you're overthinking this shit and one night of sex with a random number can't change ANYTHING we have. We'll get through it, I'll fuck you until you can't remember anyone else ever touching you, and you'll try to understand that even if I don't believe in monogamy, I believe in y'know, what we've got going on. We'll get drunk, maybe talk about your feelings, maybe not. And then... we'll forget it even happened. I think. I hope."

"Are you saying that to make me feel better?"

You squeeze her snugly to you, "we don't lie to each other, Root." 

Root rests her head on you again. You feel the roar of your protective instinct as it rears up on its hind legs and demands you *do something* to make her feel right again. Some things, though, you can't protect each other from.

"I do feel better," Root finally says, "still gross, but better."

You poke her in the ribs. "I'll take you even if you're gross... Do you maybe want some breakfast?"

"Feed me pancakes," she demands. 

So you do.


	11. foundations

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> These nerds are still figuring shit out, yrs into their relationship. because that is what real people do.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> triggers i guess: Root tries to do something sex related that she's not entirely comfortable with and Shaw refuses to keep going.
> 
> sorry for two angsts in a row. BUT. I promise the next chapter is like 5000 words of pure, gratuitous, kinky af smut. and the chapter after that is so sweet it will melt your teeth.

Root is a wildfire. She burns through everything. Most of the time, it's beautiful to watch her go. But sometimes, you fear she'll scorch herself to pieces, you worry that she'll get so caught up in whatever she's doing that she won't stop. It's your job, you know, to look out for these moments, to keep Root safe from the world outside and from the even more dangerous world inside her, from her all-comsuming zeal and disregard for her own body. 

You don't often consciously consider this aspect of your relationship because honestly, you're usually too distracted with other shit. Like going under cover as a police-adjacent security guard and having to eat your lunch in a gross, windowless room that smells of old ham and fake cheese.

"Communication and trust," Dr. Phil drawls from the shitty break room TV, "are the cornerstones of a successful, healthy relationship." 

The women in his audience coo in approval. Pigeons. 

"Not as important as good bourbon and reliable handcuffs," you snort, and check the clock, again. 

It's just after 10 pm. You have twenty-two minutes before your number, a dirty security guard with police force ambitions, comes on duty. You're planning to break a few of his fingers and figure out who he's pissed off so you can shuffle him to safety and maybe make him piss himself in fear. 

You like working nights, always have. Root does too, so it's somewhat rare that you find yourselves asleep in bed at the same time, unless that time is two in the afternoon with sunlight pouring through Root's floofy linen curtains and the murmur of traffic lulling you both into a stupor. 

This particular night is the sixth in a row you've spent on the job. A week after Root's sex drama with that number, your ship has managed to right itself, mostly. You don't know why, but you've been avoiding each other. You are in a committed relationship with someone you share a bed, kitchen, grocery list, cleaning schedule, and (as of last month), a menstrual cycle with. Sometimes this knowledge feels like too much-- much too much. You felt squished every time this week that you saw Root's coffee cup in your sink. Not because you don't want Root there, as close as possible, in your world for keeps, but because you know how much it all means to her. You're afraid, really uncertainty-and-sweating levels of afraid, for the first time in your life, that you'll fuck it all up.

It's not like a surgery, you remind yourself, as your number shows up, takes one look at your gun, and tries to make a run for it. 

It's not like stitches, either, you think as you chase after him, follow him into a hangar where police cruisers are stored for repairs and bring him down with an arm around the throat.

If you fuck this up, Root won't die or get sepsis or have an ugly scar. She'll be hurt as a person, in those delicate and closely guarded parts of her self that you suspect she's only ever shown to you... Hurt in a way nobody can diagnose or fix. 

You kneecap the guy because his whining and threatening was interfering with your contemplation. He howls. You smirk a little, even though you know Fusco will insist you clean the blood spatter off the nearest cruiser when he comes to collect this moron. But when you mutter something about needing a mop into your comm, it's not Finch who answers, it's Root and she's all breathless and giddy.

"What are you doing in my neck of the woods, Shaw?"

"um, collaring some idiot who tried to blackmail a couple cops and got a hit put on him. Accidentally ran his knee into a bullet, so..."

"Naughty" Root says. You can practically feel her grin around the word, "She gives you a security guard for one day and you've already broken it." 

"Next time i'll be more careful."

"Mmm, you'd better."

There's a disconnect between her voice in your ear and some other sound and that's when you look up, focus, and realize that Root has somehow materialized inside the hangar.

"What are you doing here?" 

But honestly, as she picks her way across the trail of broken glass, shell casings, and blood smatters from your chase-and-catch, you couldn't care less how or why she's there. 

Root's hair is pulled back in a tight bun. She doesn't have any of her usual slightly-smokey utterly-sexy eye makeup on. She's wearing a very fitted beat cop uniform, complete with a shiny black leather belt, with a holster, truncheon and a neatly clipped pair of handcuffs hanging off it in perfect order. The slacks frame her narrow hips and long legs in clean, sharp lines. The navy blue uniform shirt is collared, making the angles of her jaw stand out, and the short sleeves are just a little too wide for her arms. She looks like a kid playing dress up. She also looks hella hot.

"Undercover on another mission. Just finished." Root grins and pushes a pair of porny aviators onto her face. They would be sexy if they weren't obviously made for a man with a head two sizes bigger than Root's.

"Oh yeah, Officer Nerd? You just happened to be working in a building near here?"

Root's glasses fall off her face and onto the floor. She shrugs.

"The Lord works in mysterious ways," she taps her ear and winks at you.

"Hm. You got anything to keep this one quiet for an hour or two?" You nudge your whining, injured guy with the toe of your boot.

Root smiles and lifts an eyebrow, tipping her head toward a nearby paddywagon-style van, the kind used for group arrests. You grab the guy's upper body and Root none-too-gently takes his feet. You drag him to the van and lock him in the back.

"Should we crack a window?"

Root shakes her head and pulls you down past about fifty cars until you're in front of a mint-looking cruiser on the other end of the hangar.

And that's how you find yourselves, lying in a sweaty, sticky heap in the back of a police car an hour later.

You try to catch a breath, all tangled up with Root, whose police uniform is now rumpled and slightly torn. You grin when you notice the seam of the shirt that you cleanly ripped through with your teeth. Yeah, she's never returning that. 

Root is preoccupied using her mouth to do something obscene to the end of her nightstick.

Using your one uncuffed hand, you barely manage to text your location to Fusco, who responds "be there in an hr."

Root uncuffs your restrained wrist from the door handle. It smarts as blood rushes back into your hand. Root unties your belt (actually one of hers that you'd borrowed), from around your head and gently slips it out of your mouth.

"That's a pretty decent makeshift gag,"

"It would be if you hadn't ruined it with teethmarks. I can't wear it again."

You scoff. 

"Shouldn't have fucked me so hard while I had it in my mouth if you wanted to keep it in tact." 

You know Root will wear the belt all the more often now, and smirk at you every time your gaze drops to the impassioned scrapes and dents from your teeth. You know she'll try to find ways to get Harold and John to comment on it, like it's a scalp belt adorned with the flesh of her conquests or something. 

"You keeping the truncheon?"

Root nods and looks up through her eyelashes at you. "I might need it to interrogate a stubborn witness later."

"Yeah well, that witness might be in need of a nap right now."

Root hums and curls up next to you, not quite touching, but close enough to share warmth. 

You take the night stick away from her and toy with it while she drifts lazily towards sleep.

"You know what we've never done?"

"Gotten a cat?"

"Oh my god, what's with you and wanting a cat? No, I meant for sex."

"Gimp mask?"

"Pretty sure that thing with the gas mask last year could fall in the gimp mask category. I mean, I've never fucked you."

"Sweetie. You just did, five minutes ago."

"With my fingers. Yeah. But never with something like this."

You drag the end of the nightstick up her arm.

"Oh. Is that... is that something you want to do?"

"It could be hot. You know what it feels like, to be inside me like that. You wanna try?"

Root turns toward you, eyes bright with something that doesn't quite register as desire, maybe curiosity.

"It's only fair, I guess" she says lightly, "next time, you fuck me. With a strap-on."

You smirk and settle back against the side of the car. "Ok." 

It's a few days before you do. First, you make a special trip to that feminist sex store Root likes. You buy one of the smallest strap-on pieces you can find, and some hypo-allergenic lube. Root doesn't crave intense penetration like you do, so you figure the toys that feel good for you might be too much for her. 

When you actually get down to it, it's after an intense round of finger-banging in a museum basement. You make it home, clothes askew and your panties peeking out of Root's back pocket. 

"Hey," you call as she drops her jeans on the couch, en route to the bathroom, "I got us a new dildo, in case you wanted to try, y'know, what we talked about..." 

"Ok," Root calls back over the sound of running water, "give me half an hour."

In half an hour, you're set up on the bed, harness on, dildo strapped in, all warm from your body heat and lubed to the nines. You're practically half-bouncing, half-wiggling with excitement. You've strapped it on before, with a few men and women, and it was always fun, even if you usually preferred to let them do the hard fucking while you collected the orgasms. This is different, though: this is Root. You and Root have done everything under the sun and the moon, except this. You can't wait to feel what Root feels from this end, the power, the intimacy. Your mouth waters.

Root finally comes into the bedroom, showered and toweling her hair.

"I see someone's eager," she smirks.

Root tosses her robe away and turns off the main light as she saunters over, leaving the room dark but for the dim glow of the FBI-issue gas-detection night light. 

You expect her to climb on top of you, but she bypasses you entirely, turns her back to you, and grips the headboard with both hands. 

You blink in confusion. 

"I thought you'd want to be on top, so you're more in control of the pace and the motion and stuff."

"Trust me. You'll like it better this way," she grins over her shoulder.

"But what about you?"

"Don't worry about me, I'm good."

So you take her word for it and position yourself behind her, trying to caress that sweet, soft, space between her thighs, and warm her up. Root grabs your hand and moves it to her breast. Before you can even argue or finger her a little bit, she's sliding back and trying to take in the tip of the dildo.

"Wait, wait-- don't you want to go slow?" 

Root often goes slow with you, sometimes when you wish she wouldn't. She checks in with you, makes sure you're open enough, wet enough, ready to take it. 

"mm hmm" Root shakes her head and reaches for the dildo.

You feel the moment it enters her. There's so much resistance. Is there supposed to be that much? There never is when you're on the other end. It usually just feels like a hot, hard point of connection between your bodies, not a misfit puzzle piece. You stay immobile so Root can get used to the sensation.

After a minute, she's breathing steadily, so you guess Root must be adjusted to it. You reach down, wrap your hands around her thighs to keep things steady. You give a gentle roll of your hips- it always feels incredible when Root does that when she's inside you.

Root flinches and lets out a tiny, muted "ow" and you still immediately. You skim your hands across her shoulder blades. Her whole back is rigid with a kind of tension that doesn't seem right to you. You touch her gently for a long time, hoping to melt whatever discomfort she's feeling, but she just stiffens more. Root doesn't- can't relax into your hands. 

"That feels good," she murmurs. Her voice is tight but you can hear the lightness she's trying to force into her tone. It doesn't sound right.

You pull out, gingerly, feeling her whole frame soften when you do.

"We're not doing this anymore," you announce, "it isn't ok."

"No! We can. I needed minute to adjust."

You shake your head, staying firm.

"I had that thing inside you for like seven minutes, Root. It was hurting you. And not in a good way." 

Root crumbles under you, expels a heavy sigh, and leans against the headboard with her head drooping. Her narrow shoulders sag. After only a few seconds, she flops down onto the mattress next to you, grabs your pillow and presses it firmly over her face.

You reach for her but she shivers away from you, rolling onto her side, all the way at the edge of the mattress. 

"In a minute, Shaw."

Her body curls into itself, knees drawing up toward her chest. You fumble around, trying to unbuckle the stupid harness and toss it away and cover Root with a sheet without bothering her and trying, too, to understand what just happened, all at once. 

"I was fine." Root insists, as you tuck a blanket over her shoulders, but you don't believe her.

You feel a horror building, cold and wet and slimy inside you. You've never felt anything like it before. You hurt Root. Not in a fun way. Not in a way that made her gasp and her eyes shimmer with want. In a bad way. You hurt the one person you basically live to protect. You didn't mean to, but you did. And she let you... and she would have let you keep hurting her... 

"Why did you let me do that to you?"

"It didn't hurt that bad."

"That bad? It doesn't work that way. If we hurt each other it's to feel good, not... Not like that."

Root pouts.

"But I wanted to."

"No, I wanted to and you agreed to it."

You remember your eagerness in the police cruiser, Root's silence and your anticipation. She had acquiesced so readily, had let you take the lead without a word.

A thought lands on you like a fifty pound dumbbell.

"Would you have let me keep going?" You ask, hating how stupid and small your voice sounds.

"If I hadn't stopped, would you have just stayed there and... taken it? and let me really hurt you? and pretended it felt good? So that I could act out some dumbass fantasy?" 

Your voice stays low and level, but something dark and unhappy rises inside you with each new question, a horrible, choking feeling overwhelming your throat.

Root grabs your wrist.

"I wanted to give you this experience," she says, "I'm sorry I disappointed you."

"You didn't DISAPPOINT me. Jesus, Root. I don't need to penetrate you, not like that. It's not important. Or necessary. We've been fucking for years and it never mattered. I just thought it could be fun and hot and intimate. Maybe something we could try. Not something... painful for you. GOD. I don't want to injure you. EVER."

Root gawks at you.

"I can't believe you were going to let me keep going. You can't do that. Don't ever do that. I can't even begin to..."

Root shrugs. "I want to give you everything you want, Sameen, I really don't mind if it hurts a little."

She says it so casually, like it doesn't matter if she hurts herself in the painful, not-fun way for you. Root can be as casual as she wants out there, in the world of codes and cover stories, of guns and explosions and torture. She can carelessly bloody her knuckles and acrue scars, you can accept that. But not with you. In bed, or wherever you have sex, she isn't supposed to be dismissive of her body. That's not how it's supposed to work. Sex is when you listen to your body.

Root broke a rule of fucking (never let the other person do something you aren't ok with) and you don't like it. You don't like the memory of her rigid back, the way she turned away from you and tried to take it fast and... get it over with. Give you what you wanted.

You sit up and take Root's face in your hands. Her soft cheeks are blanched and she still looks like she's trying to swallow down a grimace. You look hard into her bright eyes.

"I don't need everything I want, Root. I only need you. I need you to tell me when something feels good or when it's bad. I need to know I can trust you, that you'll be honest with me and not try to power through something because I want it. Yeah, I wanted to be inside you with a strap-on, but way, way more than that I want to make you feel good."

Root squirms. "But it was-"

"We DON'T lie to each other, Root."

"So if I said I don't want you to use a toy on me, ever-"

"That's fine. I don't fucking care about it. Our sex is already unbelievably hot. I like using my mouth and my hands and a little skin on skin friction, I like every single way you fuck me. I even like it when we're just lying in bed or on the couch and touching ourselves, independently, together."

You stroke the back of her knee gently with your fingertips. 

"I like those things too," Root sniffs.

"Are you ok?" you gesture toward her lap, now draped over with a sheet.

"You're sweet, but I'm fine."

"If I hurt you-"

"Shaw. You don't like it when I coddle you, so...,"

"Sorry."

You press your face against her shoulder. 

"Can I make you feel good?"

"I think, maybe, I just want to sleep now, ok?"

"Ok." 

You brush your thumb down her cheek and roll out of bed, taking the toy to the bathroom to clean it, as Root usually does after fucking you with something. You expect Root to be asleep when you return. You switch off all the lights and lie in the city dark of the room, still silently cursing yourself for hurting her.

"Sameen," Root mumbles, "it wasn't your fault."

"Yes, Root."

"Go to sleep."

You try, but you can't.

You and Root have never had problems communicating about sex before. She has always been so good at articulating, in exacting detail, everything she wants you to do and everything she wants to do to you. You've agreed on things to banish from sex (baby talk, earplugs, anything with needles) and things to include a lot (spanking, make-out marathons). You've never had something like this happen before, where one of you pretended to like or want something for the other. It feels wrong and off kilter. You wonder if Root was trying to punish herself, she does that sometimes, when she gets into a dark spiral in her head.

"Did you only agree to it in the first place because of that thing that happened with your number?" you finally ask, knowing by her breathing that she's not quite asleep yet.

Root huffs. "no." 

"You sure?"

"I don't always know why I do things."

"Sounds like something I'd say." 

Five minutes pass. You inch closer to her until you're right beside her.

"Come here," you grumble, "I'll let you be the big spoo-- the person on the outside tonight."

It doesn't require much moonlight to see the tiny, genuine smile break across her face as you flop to one side and she tucks herself behind you.

"Minimal butt groping please."

Root blows a puff of air in your ear.

You squirm into her..

"I can feel your hand hovering"

"I don't want to use up all my gropes at once."

"Ugh, weirdo just do one long grope and stop talking about it."

In the morning, you'll have to talk, in an actual conversation with words, about trust and the types of destruction that are acceptable between sex partners and the types that are not. You'll have to make Root understand that her pleasure is more important to you than trying something new in bed. But for now, with Root's warm palm on your ass and her peaceful, soft, breath on your neck, you're content to let sleep wash over you. 

In the morning, you wake Root up by kissing her neck and, once she starts waking up, by gently massaging her breasts. She arches her back into you, sleepy and warm like a long, lean cat coming up from a nap in the sun.

"I want to go down on you," you tell her.

"Mmm, yeah." She clumsily shoves at the top of your head, nudging you in the right direction. 

You kiss and bite and lick your way down her body, savoring the salty sweet taste of her, the way she shivers, sighs, and rocks into your touches. It's so easy, with Root. After all this time, you know what she likes, when she wants it fast and hard, when she wants it slow and languorous. You know she likes easy, playful sex in the morning.

You waste no time teasing, gripping Root's hips and lifting her so you can dive face first into her pussy. The nasty bruise on her thigh is almost gone, just a pale yellow broken ring on her skin now. You lick your way through her folds, digging your thumb into the bruise as you go. Root gives a little gasp, you look up and see her eyes shiny with the kind of desire you like to see. Happy. Root smiles down at you, all sleepy and flushed and turned on. This, right now, this is what matters, her feeling good and you feeling her.

You work your mouth in a wild, messy rhythm, licking firm and wet and tirelessly until Root is properly turned up and digging her fingers into your hair and tightening her thighs around your head. Her hips give sharp little jerks every now and then and you can feel her inner muscles clenching hard. 

"Shaw! Shaw, use your fingers." Root demands.

You slide two fingers into her. She's so hot, clamping down on you and flailing just a little. It doesn't take more than some steady pressure from your fingers and your tongue dancing along her clit. Root comes with a long breath, falling back into her pillow. You stay between her legs, resting your chin on her lower belly. You extract your fingers and wipe them off on your sheets (whatever, it's laundry day anyway).

Root hums low and content in the back of her throat. She doesn't look at you, stays staring at the ceiling, but she strokes her fingers through your hair, over and over again until you're so relaxed you might fall asleep.

You kiss her just below her belly button. 

"I just wanna make you feel good. Well, I want you to dominate the hell out of me, too, and I want us to have rough fucking marathon sex, and keep saving idiots and shooting cool weapons, and to finish building the dungeon in the spare room, but mostly, I just want us to feel good together."

Root gives a deep, sated sigh.

"Me too, sweetie."

"Can we just. Can we make it a rule that if it doesn't feel good we won't do it?"

"Of course, Sameen, I thought that was understood."

"But you broke it, last night."

Root studies you for a second, her lips quirk up, curious and amused at how serious you are. 

"It really bothered you that much?"

You look away. You busy yourself licking at a small patch of her silky skin.

"I'm sorry," Root says, plain and simple, after a minute, "it won't happen again."

"Sameen, can you look at me?"

"I don't know how to say what I want to say right now, so I'm gonna go get us bagels."

Root laughs, "ok."

"When I get back you can apologize to me by fucking my brains out."

Root gives a little bounce in bed, her countenance blithe and maniacal again, all the angst of the past two weeks seems burned away.

"Goodie" she says as you shuffle into pants and a jacket. 

You shake your head and decide maybe Lionel is sometimes not entirely wrong when he calls your girlfriend Nutterbutter.


	12. sparring practice

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> this chapter is porn. gratuitous, sloppy, sex-positive, kinky porn. triple xxx, skip if you don't like sex, lesbian af pornytimes.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Shaw thinks about how mature she is bc Adulting with Root. Then they fuck like teenagers... teenagers with advanced BDSM skills.
> 
> This chapter includes:  
> consensual everything  
> rough sex  
> choking  
> knifeplay  
> s&m play torture  
> butt stuff  
> penetration stuff  
> dom/sub dynamics  
> Root being grumpy because Shaw got waxed  
> masturbation  
> Shaw being a nerd

"I love making you come," Root chirps as she pulls out of you, her arm and leg muscles visibly trembling. 

"Yeah? You're kinda good at it."

"Well, I've had some practice." Root simpers. 

You lay still on your back, sweaty skin cooling, feeling your eyes refocus and your heart rate slowly return to normal.

Root unbuckles the harness and drops it, with the strap-on still in, onto the floor. She props some floofy pillows up against the headboard and sinks into them, grabbing her librarian glasses and phone from the nightstand as she goes. You roll over and drop a heavy, half-dead arm around her.

You've learned, since being with Root, that holding another person can be enjoyable. Empowering even.

Root after full-out fucking is all sticky and warm; her hair is disarrayed, plastered to her temples. She's buck naked and her skin is flushed, little bruises blooming all over her, like a field of spring flowers. When you move your hands across her body, you can feel the give of her soft breasts and the fragile ridges of her ribs. You glance down at her belly and the soft shadows dipping toward her sex, the harness-scrapes and nail marks on her hipbones and thighs. 

Root runs her fingers through your hair and hums. She likes it when you look at her, preens under your comfortable familiarity with every part of her body. She loves all forms of attention, especially from you. You like feeling strong, your muscles coiling around Root's thin limbs. You might be smaller than Root, but you could easily bench press her. Her mind might run circles around yours, but your body literally encircles hers in these moments. You do the protecting.

You've learned- Root has taught you- the restful sort of peace that comes from simply existing, side by side, with someone. Especially someone you're on fucking terms with. Root, a drooling-sleeper, a casual ear-licker, and a shameless snuggler, has taken up residence on your breast too many times to count. And, despite your initial protests, she made you like it.

You remember back when she used to leave after a fuckfest, how you were grateful for it, those first few months. Then you started getting annoyed because it was Root and everything about Root is equal parts hot and annoying. Maybe you WANTED to make her pancakes and try and coax her to eat an egg because, hello, protein. Maybe you LIKED watching her towel off and dress after a shower. Maybe knowing where she was, even for a precious few extra minutes, put you at ease.

Maybe. You can admit it now. Now that you share a fridge. Now that you casually stir protein powder into her milkshakes and pretend not to notice when the products she brings home have filthy hippie buzzwords like "soy" and "vegetarian" or that image of the stupid bunny in the circle printed on them. Now that Root's home is your home and your toothbrushes live bristle-to-bristle together and Root leaves her tasers everywhere (including places where you might sit on them). 

You actually kind of like the together part of being together. It's no longer something you slug through for the sex and the adventure. Sitting across a kitchen table from Root in amicable quiet, eating breakfast is almost as good as setting Root on the kitchen table and eating her out for breakfast (almost--- almost as good). You can admit these things now. You've grown as a person or some shit. Harold would be pleased. 

Now. Now, you've lived together for years and it's not weird at all that you touch all the time. If you walk by the couch and Root is sitting on it, typing, you pat her head without a second thought. Anytime she's within two feet of you, Root's hands are on your butt. Like magnets. Gropey butt magnets.

You don't know when this casual contact became ok. You don't know when Root's fingers looping around your wrist like a human handcuff went from being annoying as fuck to something comforting, something you like. You can't pinpoint a specific date when deflecting Root's annoying attempts to manhandle you in public became secretly entertaining and a little bit erotic, when her stupid spoon marks in your pint of ice cream became just... spoon marks in your pint of ice cream, part of the everyday and not a grand invasion of some kind... when the divide between your life and hers broke down and you stopped minding and started liking it.

You guess Root has tamed you, or maybe you've tamed her. Maybe you've tamed each other, just a little bit. You can feel both your rough and broken edges and corners fitting together in the least expected ways, you can see your life together taking on a shape that doesn't look like any relationship you've ever seen before, but it feels ok. Somehow, becoming "Shaw and Root" hasn't made you any less Shaw. Or made Root any less Root.

Because even though you spend long stretches of time working, eating, sleeping, and doing weird illegal shit together, Root still bites like a shark and tops the hell out of you. She still uses godawful pickup lines and has secret, hushed conversations with the machine. And you still seek out solitude and steak and spontaneous violence, but now they're not the only things that make you feel good. And despite your newfound appreciation for occasionally gentle sex, you still love to shove Root against the wall or the desk or the floor when you make out, popping seams and sending buttons flying as you go. 

You might live together like middle aged lesbians (NOT that you have a sexual identity, you dig hot people and Root is hot people: Root's pretty comfortable with the lesbian tag, even though she's gone the distance with men for work before). But. You still find excuses to collide like desperate teenagers, thank you very much. You don't exactly let it interfere with saving the world, but sometimes, well, there are hiccups. Moments when a second of friction creates a spark and then, before you know it, you and Root are blazing through each other's clothes and bodies, unquenchable. You smush into each other, so hard and so far that you know there are trace amounts of Root in you and you in Root for weeks afterwards.

You make the mistake of trying to teach Root hand-to-hand combat once and it ends up being impossible for your bodies to distinguish between rough play-fighting and foreplay.

Root kicks your feet out from under you and the whoosh of air from your lungs as your back hits the foam sparring mat only turns you on. 

"I like this game," Root announces, eyes dark and lips wet, staring you down like the barrel of a gun.

You hop up and have Root pinned to the mat in seconds.

"I know what you like" you hiss, twisting her arm enough for it to hurt a little.

Her bony elbow digs up against your ribs as she flops in weak resistance.

"Yeah, what's that?" Her voice comes out thin, more a gasp than anything else.

You kiss the side of her neck, fast and brutal, scraping your teeth down her jugular. You press your fingers with unnecessary force into the tender flesh at the bottom of Root's ribcage. Her breath switches from adrenal- fast and excited, to slow, deep, and shuddery. You dig your thumb in just under her breast. She moans a little in the back of her throat. You're bruising her everywhere and she's getting more and more turned on by it.

"You like it when I rough you up like this, so you can take your sweet time punishing me for it later."

"Mm?" 

You kiss her again, gentle before you sink your teeth into the soft skin of her throat. She presses her whole body up and into your bite.

Root moans obscenely as you lick your way along her neck, pushing her hard into the mat as you do.

"What do you think I'm going to do to you for this?" She pants.

"Dunno, something good probably" 

You shove one hand down her body, into her workout pants. Your fingers edge between her legs. You grip her sex over her panties, hard, a few times, then dip inside, your fingers finding her warm, damp heat. You stroke Root with one hand while keeping her firmly in place with the other.

"Guess," she demands, wriggling happily against your body. 

You start fingering her, staying on the outside, going firm but not too fast because Root needs time to build. 

"Eh. You might put me on my knees, mmm, maybe you'll whip me, taser me, maybe it'll be a surprise, I dunno.... Maybe throw some fire play in there. Saw you got a new blowtorch this week."

"Yesss-" Root breaks off into a hiss. 

You're rough, your free hand coming around to abuse her nipples and grip her slender, fragile throat. Her pulse pounds a quick, deep rhythm under your fingertips. You can feel her swallow against your palm as you move your hand back down to her breasts. 

But. Rough as you are, you take your cues from Root. She likes it hard and dangerous, but not to the extremes that you do. Her comfort in discomfort is your supreme objective in this mission: hurt Root, but don't Hurt her. Make her come. Repeat.

When she starts grinding hard and recklessly into your hand, you enter her with one finger, letting it do all the work, take all the pounding.

"That feel good?"

"Mmm, add another."

"Yes ma'am."

You can feel her open a fraction wider and get just a little wetter when you say that. Root loves it when you defer to her, when you voice your submission or express it by getting on your knees, obeying her soft commands, or asking for her permission to come. 

You slip in a second finger, reveling in the way Root's whole body seems to orbit around your touch and your movements.

"Sweetie," Root urges, pressing her ass into your hip, "rough me up like you mean it."

You take the hint and shift your legs, giving yourself room to bring your free hand back and smack her ass a couple times with slow, hard, punctuating blows. She clenches tighter around you, riding each little ripple of pain closer to bliss.

"Yes, more, more!"

You might be pinning Root to the ground, smashing the daylights out of her, but she's still so in charge and it's so hot.

"Nice and hard Shaw, put some elbow into it. Mmmm, use your teeth."

You pump in an out, biting at her neck, her shoulders, the sparse freckles on her pale back.

"Yeah! Bloody me like a steak."

You bite the inside of your cheek and try really hard not to snicker at that. 

So often sex plays out so that you're fucking Root and she's calling out orders in the form of stupid similes. Bloody me like a steak. Crush me like a beer can. Spank me like a monkey. Kiss me like a Dementor. Eat me like buffalo wings. Ride me like a bobsled. Wherever she's getting her sex similes from, she should get a refund.

Root clenches hard around your fingers and you keep going, crushing her into the floor.

"Fuck me harder, Sameen!" Root demands letting out wanton gasps and satisfied "mmphs" of pleasure. 

So you do, you use force and bodyweight and slam into Root so hard and so fast you're pretty sure she'll be feeling it for days.

"Ahh, good girl. Keep going."

You hear a little whine coming from the back of your throat as Root's tight, slick heat shudders hard around your fingers. You twist and bend inside her, and are rewarded with a string of high-pitched velociraptor-esque noises. When Root finally comes, it's wet and violent and she reaches back and clutches your thigh hard enough to bruise.

You wait a minute for her to come down, and then disengage your fingers from Root's pussy. You let her gently drop down the few inches to the floor. She gives a huffy little moan and rolls over halfway onto your lap.

You grin down at Root's messy hair, her heavy-lidded eyes, wild, blown pupils, her flushed, sweaty skin, the trail of bruises and bite marks. Root is thoroughly fucked, satisfied. You did that. A warm pang of something delicious spikes through you.

Root grabs your sticky fingers and sucks them into her mouth, tongue gliding up and down and in between the digits, making your vision get very foggy. All of your feeling, it seems, every nerve ending and sensory receptor, has magically migrated to your fingers and is awash in the hot, wet, slurping action going on.

Root winks up at you as she's happily sucking her own liquids off your fingers. 

"How do you even have the energy to do that right now?"

"I taste good,"

"I know you do... You want me to go down on you?"

Root shakes her head, "I'm spent. For the moment."

"Weak."

"Mmmmmm. I'm going to get you so good later."

"I'll be waiting."

"In your bunk?" 

It's a "Firefly" reference and you know that means Root found your small DVD hoard. She's convinced you're a nerd, like her, but you're not, you just like to criticize fight scenes and watch space battles. A person can do simple quadratic and chemical equations off the cuff, watch sci fi, read graphic novels, and still not be a nerd. You can hardly type, despite your personal comfort with calculus. Root is a nerd. Nerds need protecting, and more often than not they own a pair of lesbian librarian glasses. Nerds have dorky technology-based names, like Root. Not cool, action hero names, like Shaw.

Root giggles at her own joke. You take umbrage and prod her in the bellybutton.

"Don't tease me or I'll stop feeding you and you'll die."

Root tilts her head and gives you a condescending half smile.

"But Sameen, you love it when I tease you."

She picks herself up and pounces. You see it coming, but you topple back and let her pin you, your legs folding up easily to bracket her body. 

"You like it when I do this, too." Root shoves hard on your ribs, knuckles digging into you. 

She rips your buttoned shirt open and ok, that level of aggression is kinda hot. Root leans back.

"Take your bra off." she orders.

"What, you're not gonna unhook it with your teeth?"

That earns you a slap on the cheek. It's fast but light, doesn't even split your lip. You smirk at Root. This is what you like. The shock, the aggression, the way her fingers linger over what is probably an already-faded handprint on your cheek. 

You pull your bra off and toss it away. She descends on you hard, fingers and teeth pinching, twisting, biting, marking you up. Root gnaws hard on your shoulder while one hand manhandles your breast and the other dips down into your pants.

"Choke me out," you beg, "It's been too long."

Root's face lights up and her palm comes to rest lightly on your throat. "How far?"

"All the way." 

"Tap twice if you want me to stop."

You nod.

Root grins and starts fucking and choking you at the same time. The lines between fear and bliss, pleasure and agony, blur into a grey fuzz. You pass out right on the tail end of your orgasm, and when you come to, Root has your pants off and she's leaning back on her heels, watching you.

"How long did I last?" you croak

"About a minute and forty five seconds." 

"Ugh, that's pathetic."

"You're really hot when you're unconscious."

"Don't be creepy."

"You like it when I'm creepy."

"I like it when you make me come like that."

"Oh Shaw, you're such a romantic. Now," Root hauls herself up and dusts off her hands. "I want you to get up and go into the living room, and bend that scrumptious butt of yours over the couch. I bought us a new strap on and I want to fuck you good and hard before the night is over." 

"My butt is not ... scrumptious." You hiss-growl that last reprehensible word.

Root gives your ponytail a gentle tug and pouts at you.

"Not the answer I was looking for."

You don't have another answer for that, so, sticky and hot and so ready for that good, hard fucking, you uproot yourself from the sparring mat and wobble into the living room.

Where, unfortunately for your plans, your phone is buzzing its way across the coffee table. Root joins you seconds later, all the play washed off her face and her head tipped to one side. Clearly the machine is giving her some orders. Root heaves a tremendous sigh. Before you can answer your phone, she grabs your head and jerks you into a deep, messy kiss. The faintest taste of her arousal lingers on Root's tongue, sliding between your mouths, reminding you of the earth and the ocean all at once.

Root nips your bottom lip as she pulls away.

"You're in a lot of trouble later," she whispers.

She gives your butt a gentle slap, "go call Harry back, Sweetie. You and Helper Monkey have a building in Bed Stuy to blow up."

The building in Bed Stuy turns into a weeklong undercover no-sex-because-Root-has-to-go-to-Minnesota project. And then she's in DC while you and John are off diffusing bombs on the Canadian border. 

By the time Root gets back, you've forgotten all about your interrupted sexcapade and all you really want is to see your girlfriend, to talk to her (or, more likely, not talk while she rabbits on), to feed her real food, to look at her, to make sure she's taken care of so the tired circles under her eyes fade away for a while, to be with her.

Root gets home while you're in a post-workout shower. It's very inconvenient. You had carefully orchestrated some Welcome Back Plans. There were going to be handcuffs and food items and alcohol. You'd even gone to annoying lengths and a stupid beauty salon to get your body ready, and then Root goes and ruins it all by bursting in early.

You hear her coming in and dropping her stuff on the couch. You expect to hear her trying to sneak into the bathroom. What you don't expect is her shocked gasp when she does.

"Sameen! What happened?"

You rinse the shampoo out of your eyes to see Root, partially undressed in the doorway, gawping at you in obvious horror.

"Don't act like you've never seen a wax-job before. You get them all the time."

"B-b-but... Your beautiful hair."

"What, like it won't grow back?"

Root pouts and drops her blouse and bra on the counter. You swallow hard, much of the blood in your body redistributing as your shower priorities suddenly change. Your fingertips and toes and knees buzz with something like affection and want. Your body MISSED her. 

Root casually brushes a hand across her chest, absently toys with one nipple, regarding you grumpily.

"Get in here," you demand, refusing to blink as she strips, all long elegant lines and pale skin, dark, messy hair, those jumbled ribbons of pink scars.

You cannot imagine a world where the sight of her soft, small breasts, her narrow shoulders, her scrawny calves doesn't turn you on.

Root slides out of the rest of her clothes, still pouting, and joins you under the water.

"I missed you so much," she grumbles.

"You came back early," you comment.

"D.C. was boring."

"So was New York."

"It must have been if you were bored enough to get, well... Shaw, you waxed."

"I did."

"I like you scruffy," she laments, dragging her fingers over your newly-smooth skin.

"Do you really?"

She nods. "Like having something to grab onto. Rub my face against."

"You want me to grow it back?"

Root shrugs, "yes- only if you want to. I don't want to dictate your body hair, sweetie. It should be about what makes you feel sexy and confident."

You, you want to say, you make me feel sexy and confident- or you would, if it wasn't already me default setting.

"Root, you're kind of fastidious about the whole grooming thing. I wanted to return the favor, ya know, just once. Get all nice and smooth and squeaky clean for you."

"But Sweetie, I don't do all that for you. I do it because I like it."

"Mmm. But I get to enjoy it."

You glance down Root's body to her perfect, dainty patch of hair. She keeps herself impeccable. Her hair is soft and fine. She could go a week without shaving and you'd probably barely notice. Her legs are sleek and smooth. Your hair is dark, thick, and constant. Rough. And while you keep your limbs just as smooth as Root does, in the past you've let other places get a little wild. Never anything National Geographic, but while Root was away you did you did a little thinking about things you could do to make stuff even better for her. And waxing was the first and fastest thing you came up with. And now it's like she's not cool with it.

"You can't seriously enjoy traipsing through my bush that much."

Root scowls just a little petulantly. "Don't tell me what I like."

You remember the look of pride and delight on Root's face the last time she rendered you utterly helpless with her mouth. She'd spent at least an hour with her head between your legs, making you writhe and kick and beg. She'd carded her fingers through your thatch of hair and grinned- absolutely fiendishly- at you. You hadn't been thinking about grooming, then. You figured if Root didn't like it, she didn't have to go down on you. You never thought she actually... enjoyed it.

"You're really weird." You inform her, passing her her washcloth.

"I know" She leans in to whisper in your ear, "you LOVE it."

You butt your head into her back and bite her shoulder. 

"Don't tell me what I love."

Root laughs, she grabs your face and gives you a wet kiss. You frown, more out of habit than actual displeasure. When you try to pull away, Root holds fast and leans in, breath warm against your wet cheek.

"I'm going tie you up tonight," she says, her voice low and dangerous and heavy with promise.

"Are you?" 

"I'm going to make you beg," she teases.

"Yeah?" 

"Mmm. Maybe I'll do that thing you like, with my tongue, if you're a good girl."

A jolt of want crackles through your lower body.

"Which thing is that?" 

There are lot of things Root does with her tongue that you like. One hand slides around to pointedly grip your butt cheek. Root raises an eyebrow.

"Ohhh. That thing. You never do that thing."

"I'm feeling generous, since you went off and got your genitals mauled just because you thought I'd like it."

She's so dramatic. You stifle and eye roll and settle for giving Root a soapy poke in the ribs. 

"Hope you're ready to get clean before we get dirty," your murmur into soft skin that smells like old sweat and coffee and cigarettes and airplanes and, most of all, of Root. 

A few companionable hours and a shared glass of expensive Cognac later, you find yourself ziptied to a kitchen chair. Most of the lights in the apartment are off, except for a string of orange tree lights that Root "artistically" hung in a warped double circle on the wall. They cast a faint amber glow on everything- on your bare legs, stretched loosely in front of you, on the knives and scalpels and bottles and jars that Root has arranged on a folding table, on Root herself, scampering around barefoot with the ties of a back silk robe- her only article of clothing- fluttering behind her. It's a weird kink scene. Root looks like some kind of mad scientist goth virgin. 

Root finally finishes her preparations and stills in front of you. She stares down at you with heavy, dark eyes and you can see the pure desire on your face, as clearly as you imagine she must be able to see it on yours.

It's been weeks since your last time having truly kinky sex and you missed it, missed her, missed playing rough. 

You don't need it like this to enjoy yourselves, to enjoy each other, but it's a special way of connecting. It's a different, deeper flavour of fun. Kinky sex is all about good communicating and, ironically, never about communicating a specific point. Like sometimes you fuck Root and it means "welcome home, I missed you, you're so hot when you have two guns blazing, I'm glad you're alive, I care about you" or she fucks you and it means "thanks for dinner, you were extra kind to me today and I noticed, I know your shoulder hurts so I'm going to distract you, I love you." Sometimes it doesn't mean anything. And sometimes, when it gets rough or S&M, it just means "pleasure, pain, pleasure, pass out," plain and simple.

Root interrupts your thoughts, cupping your cheek all fond and possessive, her touch firm and controlling but gentle. The atmosphere shifts; you know she's going to make good on her promise of making you beg. 

"You look so yummy, all trussed up for me." She says.

You don't respond but your pulse speeds up a notch. Root smirks.

"You know what I love the most about tying you up like this?"

"It reminds you of the day we met?"

She tosses you a goopy smile. "That is so romantic. But no. What I really love, is seeing your forearms and biceps strain against your restraints and knowing that, if you really wanted to, you could have me unconscious on the floor in less than ten seconds."

Your thigh twitches when she says this, like your body wants to do just that, kick and twist- break free. You don't though. Root grins and leans over, a hand on each of your wrists, the front of her robe slipping partially open and revealing... a lot. 

Root pinches your nipple lightly through your tank top to refocus your attention. You shiver. Fuck. Yes. 

"But no matter what I do to you, no matter how much I make you bleed or beg," 

Root strokes the shell of your ear between two fingers, 

"No matter how infuriatingly gentle I am," she tugs sharply at your ear lobe, so hard your eyes water.

"No matter what, you won't move unless I tell you to... And do you know why?"

"Because I get off on being told what to do." Ask a stupid question...

"Because you're a good, obedient, little sub, Sameen."

You bristle.

"I'm not 'little,' Root."

She smirks at your ire.

"No. You're right. You're not little. You're a lion. You might let me put you on your knees, tie you up, gag you, torment you, control your orgasms... but you'll always be a lion. Hungry, powerful, dangerous..." 

The way her mouth wraps around "dangerous" makes your blood sing.

Root makes a show of snapping on a pair of rubber gloves. You swallow drily. 

"You're a fierce lion, and I'm going to hear you roar before the night is over."

Root grins picks a small, razor-sharp little knife from the table. You can't wrench your eyes away from her. Root likes to pretend that she's using dirty old tools to fuck you up, but you know she soaks all her sharp bits and pieces in alcohol and inspects every blade for burrs and nicks before she lets anything remotely near your skin. 

She saunters over and drags the blade of her knife from your earlobe, down your neck, to the collar of your low cut tank top. Root holds your top with one hand and works the knife with the other, slitting down the thin fabric, grazing a broken path of shallow scratches along your torso as she goes. 

The fact that you and Root can still make each other bleed, especially after everything that happened with Samaritan, is kind of the best part of your relationship. You remember waiting and waiting for the day when Root could look at your skin, littered with fresh bruises, your blood, freshly spilt or drying from some excess of pleasure and pain, and see something life-affirming, something good again. The first time you got hurt out in the field, and it was only a bloody nose, you had forgotten about the mess on your face, forgotten everything except the rush of combat-- until you'd gotten back to the safe house and Root's face had gone ghost white and her hands had shaken everywhere. You remember her soft little whimper that she'd immediately tried to hide behind a cough, the way she looked at you like you were made of silk. You remember waiting for Root to feel ready, comfortable, to bruise you again, to make you hurt and bleed for pleasure. It took a long time. It was months and months before she'd so much as spank you, and even now she's careful about handcuffs. 

You're so grateful, now, for the sadistic joy on Root's face as she humors your requests for more and deeper and sharper cuts. 

Root is a genius with her tiny knife blade. She executes pirouettes, criss-crosses, and digs sharp nicks into your chest, your abs, around your belly button, down near your hips. It's never deep enough to injure or scar, but always deep enough to make you gasp. You relish the faint sting of Root's blade, dipping and dancing across your skin, the lines of fire and itchy droplets of blood that follow.

Root smears patterns on your skin. It's not enough, it's nowhere near enough.

"You're not hurting me," you complain. 

"No? Poor baby."

Root reaches for something on the table and procures wet strip of white cloth. She drags it down your chest and an unholy wildfire trails in its wake, scorching every fresh cut.

"holy shit! holy shit!"

"Better?" she inquires sweetly, as though she'd just added more salt to your food or something,

"What was that?" The initial raging burn settles down to pronounced, hot sting. Looking down, you can see angry, red swelling on every paper-thin cut. You feel like Root has just laid into your torso with a whip. 

"A little cocktail I mixed special for tonight. Water, a dash of alcohol for sanitation, and the juice of a few FDA-regulated hot peppers. How do you feel?"

"ah, shit... Six," you pant. 

Six out of ten, ten being 'too much pain even for me.' You've never hit ten with Root, yet. 

Root hums and dabs at you with a paper towel. She dangles the damp fabric in front of your face. You don't flinch away when she squeezes it and a burning, stinging droplet lands on your neck, but you want to.

"I'm going to use this on you again," she says.

You almost ask her not to. You nod instead.

Root presses a towel hard on a wide cut just below the inside of your left breast. Satisfied that she's performed some kind of medical duty to you, she ungloves one hand and reaches it down into your underwear.

"Wouldn't want to get any of those dangerously hot juices in here, would we? Mmm mmm, looks like there are enough juices present already."

Root enters you abruptly with two fingers. You shudder and pick your hips up, trying to get more friction, deeper penetration, more Root. She takes her time, fucking you playfully with one hand while the other dangles the evil scrap of cloth in front of you. 

"You're gonna slap me with that when I come, aren't you?"

Root just raises an eyebrow and fucks you harder. 

"Who said anything about you getting to come tonight?" she asks after a minute.

You wisely remain silent. Root adds a third finger and before you can help it, you're clenching your jaw and shuddering and coming hard around her fingers.

Root pulls out and wafts her fingers, sticky with your arousal, in front of your face. You reach out and suck them into your mouth. You suck away your own deep, salty, earthy taste. You suck until it's just the taste of Root's skin left. You run your tongue up and down between her fingers, payback for that time on the sparring mat. 

She stutters out a harsh breath. 

You catch each other's eye. Now is not the time to be grinning like idiots, but you both are. Root is smug, like a naughty child getting away with something very bad. She moves her fingers around in your mouth, strokes the inside of your cheek, tickles the roof of your mouth, plays with your tongue. Root forces you to keep your jaw open.

"Relax," she orders softly, "easy."

You let her play with you. It's a deeply assertive move on her part, tacitly asking you to submit like this, dominating your mouth, not with her own as she has in the past, but with her fingers. 

She stills, curls just the tips of her fingers over your bottom front teeth, using her thumb under your jaw to pressure your mouth shut. She winks and holds that stupid cloth out, hovering just above your nipple. You inhale sharply. You know it's coming. The moment stretches out and out and out, Root waiting and watching to see what you'll do. You know she can feel you swallowing, can see the saliva leaking out of your mouth.

She drips one agonizing drop onto your hard, sensitive nipple. Then she does the other. Then a trail of drops down your chest. The the awful, fiery concoction lights your skin up again. It hurts, it hurts, but Root's fingers are in your mouth so you can't, you won't clench your teeth. You have to relax your jaw and ride out the wave of stinging, burning pain. Your eyes water and you breathe in short, hard little pants.

When it finally subsides, Root withdraws her fingers. The aftermath of the burning is a not-unpleasant warmth, like tiger balm.

"Good girl," Root coos, "good, good girl."

She wipes down your chest with another cloth soaked in something that neutralizes a lot of the heat. 

"That was a warm-up," she remarks. "Now I'm really going to hurt you."

Root breaks the zipties, snaps the waistband of your underwear against your skin. 

"Take these off. I want you to bend over the coffee table. Spread your legs wide and don't move." 

Just being told what to do, by Root, in that tone... it does things to you, makes you blush all over. Inside too.

Root waltzes off and you hear her washing her hands and tinkering with something. You drop your panties and bend over, palms down on the coffee table, legs spread, open and vulnerable, at Root's command. When Root comes back, you glance over your shoulder to see that she's wearing a new harness and toting a box with at least two dildos peeking out the top. 

Root catches you staring and slaps your ass, hard.

"Told you not to move."

"Didn't think looking counted."

She slaps your ass again. You wiggle back toward her hand.

"Mmm, do I get a spanking?"

"You're such a glutton for punishment. No, no spanking tonight. We do that enough on weekdays. Awww. Don't pout, sweetie, I promise this is going to be agonizing." 

Root slips her hand around your body and rubs something slick and cold, an ice cube, onto the points of your nipples. The cold numbs the burn from the horrible pepper juice torture, but then the cold makes your nipples slowly grow hard, peaking from the sensation, extra sensitive. You're sweating into the shallow gashes on your midsection and it stings too. Pleasurable loops of thick, warm pain roil through your nervous system. It shouldn't feel good, but it does.

Root vanishes into the bedroom and returns with a long mirror. 

"Don't drop that on your feet," you warn.

She scrunches her nose at you and props the mirror against the wall in front of you.

"You're going to watch me fuck you," she informs you. "You might have noticed I brought out two dildos. Can you guess what they're for?"

"One for each of us?"

"Nope." 

Root spreads some lube on her palm and starts lubing up the smaller, flared-base dildo with long, slick strokes. You watch her reflection, mesmerized.

"You going to fuck me with one and then with the other?"

"Close," 

"Both at once?"

"In a way, yes..."

She glides one slippery fingertip up the inside of your left ass cheek, dangerous and inevitable.

"Ohhhh,"

"Mm."

Root's non-lubed hand comes to rest firmly on your lower back. She doesn't say another word, just guides you to bend down more, nudges your legs farther apart, leans in, and commences an act so tantalizing, so unspeakably delightful, that all you can really do is clench your fists and groan weakly. And much later, when she backs away and bites you hard on the ass cheek, you don't even have enough of a grasp on actual language to find the words to thank her. 

Root probes with one, then two fingers, cautiously, slowly, warming you up. She wiggles her slick fingers until you're relaxed and open and desperate, pushing back eagerly.

"Root, please, now." someone, maybe you, begs.

And Root carefully enters you with the dildo. It didn't look that big, but going in it feels huge, thick, and full and hot. Root presses it in as far as it can go and makes sure the base is secure between your ass cheeks.

"oh fuuuuck," you finally, eloquently, pronounce.

"Be right back," she chirps, and drifts into the bathroom, or the kitchen or somewhere... away from you.

Over the sounds of Root washing her hands and gargling with that antiseptic mouthwash she likes, you can hear your own breathing and your own heartbeat thumping in your ears. You slowly clench and unclench around the toy, enjoying the ripples of pleasure firing into your brain, down to your toes and back.

Across from you, the mirror shows your white knuckles and disheveled hair. Your eyes are black and wild, your torso a lovely map of nicks and precise cuts, just beads of blood now, here and there. You admire the artwork Root has made of your body until you see her behind you again, now wearing a harness into which she slips the second dildo.

"Up on the table," she orders, patting your ass, "on your back- parallel to the mirror please"

You obey. As you sit, you wince just a little bit. The new position means your weight is resting firmly on the first dildo. Its pressure inside you is intense, filling. It makes you just a little sore, but it's not painful. It skirts the line between enough and too much. If you were alone, you'd probably be able to come just from rocking back and forth a few times, maybe touching your clit once or twice. 

Root inspects your new position, rewards you with a minty fresh kiss.

"good girl," she says and you swear your clit twitches.

Root fits herself between your legs, the head of the strap-on brushing the inside of your thigh. 

"How's your ass?"

"Feels really good." 

"Mm, good, spread your legs for me. Yea, wider, I want your pussy open and begging for me."

"My pussy can't beg, Root.."

"Maybe not with words, but she and I have an understanding."

"Ugh,"

"You'd be surprised by how eloquent your pussy is, Shaw, just other day she was telling me-"

"If you make this something about getting a cat," you grunt, "I'm moving out."

Root huffs. She slicks some lube onto the dildo and thrusts into you. You gasp out all your air. Your upper body slides back and forth as Root sets a good, fast rhythm. It feels like you got hit by a truck, a sex truck, you're so full, everywhere, because of Root. And now she's riding you, hard and the friction between the two dildos, and her fingers pinching your nipples- you catch sight of yourselves in the mirror, Root pale and slim and hovering, smiling sweetly- and you, dark and debauched and desperate, brows furrowed, trying to focus, your bodies rocking and sliding together and making the coffee table wobble.

"I think we're gonna break the table," you grunt, grabbing her butt cheeks for leverage.

"reinforced, steel, legs" Root answers between thrusts. 

You feel the build charging at you, faster, harder, more, more, more, until your muscles spasm out of control. You come in a way you haven't come in a long, long time- since your twenties at least, gushing liquid all over the strap-on, the table top, Root's thighs. Root moans, grinds hard into you, and quakes to a stop almost immediately after you come. She revives after a minute and stares down at you, her mouth open ever so slightly in awe, eyes wide, pupils blown, sparkling with something. She's never looked so proud of herself. 

You gasp, coming a second, shorter time when she pulls out. You flop back, boneless, still full in other places, and completely soaked.

Root presses your thighs wide apart and bends down to inspect your sex.

"Nothing's broken" she announces, then adds, on second thought, "except maybe you, sweetie."

Root presses her fingers inside you and massages your g-spot until you swallow a whimper.

"I can't come again."

"I don't think that's your call to make, Sameen." Root coos, her voice teasing and firm all at once.

It's this, these moments of gentle dominance, when Root won't take no for an answer, when she edges you past your own limits, that you are most grateful for. Root has a quiet power that draws you in, steals your breath. She's like a spring rain, sometimes, delicate and gentle, not hard enough to feel good, but then suddenly a flood, and the flood is your orgasm. It only works if you give her control, let things play out her way. And you so often do. Root's authority over you in these situations makes your mouth water. You want to kneel in front of her, open yourself up for her, give her whatever she requests. And for her part, Root is gentle in a sort of way that drives you crazy. When you want hammer, she's all scalpel, slicing and dancing around, finessing you to the precipice and shoving you off with no more than a breath. So when she says it's not your call, you bite your lip and nod and submit yourself to whatever her plan is. 

Root's touch is delicate and insistent. Her voice is kind but firm as she talks you through your next orgasm: you're going to come, you're going to keep coming until she's satisfied, and that's that.

Root rubs you where you are tender and sopping from your past two orgasms. Her strong, sure fingers press against that spot inside you, tug at you, fill you and empty you at the same time. You have never felt more naked or more submissive than you do in this moment. You raise your hips and give her everything you have and she takes you, dominates you so completely. Root doesn't stop gently fucking you until you come again, tears pressing behind your eyes from how fucked out you feel. 

"good girl," she praises, "almost done."

"Please," you beg, drawing your legs together, "no more,"

"I promised to hurt you, sweetie. Does it hurt yet?"

You shake your head and spread your legs again, baring yourself to her touch.

"Wider, darling," she murmurs, kissing your thigh as you whimper and obey her, "mm, that's it, I want you nice and open for me."

Root smiles sweetly as she pulls a dental dam out of her bathrobe pocket and covers your clit with it, she presses her mouth to you and waits to see what you do. You could safeword. But part of you wants to see how far this goes. Part of you won't be happy until it hurts.

As Root eats you out, the sensations are mercifully numbed through the rubber barrier. It probably wasn't her intention, Root's fastidious about what she will and won't do after her mouth has been anywhere near your ass, even if, like tonight, you've taken significant preparatory measures. It's just another one of those considerations that point to her unmistakable care for you.

Fingers still working inside you and her tongue badgering your clit, Root coaxes another, fainter orgasm out of you. It's not painful, but it hurts in an amazing, raw, powerful, good sort of way. You forget to breathe.

You hear yourself whine. The liquid underneath you has cooled and you're wet and sticky. You feel debauched and punished and filthy. And that just keeps you turned on.

"Alright, soldier, on your tummy," Root orders, leaning back.

You stiffly roll over, the front of your sweaty body slipping around. Your hip bones are going to bruise from digging against the wood tabletop, but it feels wonderful to alleviate the pressure from your bodyweight on the other dildo. 

Root strokes your bare ass reverently. 

"You're all sticky, Shaw. Covered in your own come. Do you feel as hot as you look right now?"

You glance at the mirror and laugh because you and Root are two hot messes, hair in a frenzy, pupils blown, sweaty, strung out, properly debauched. And all on a coffee table.

You just know you're either going to have to throw that table away, or find some way of not getting turned on every time you look at it. 

"Stretch your arms and legs out- grip the edge of the table, spread eagle... there we go."

Root grasps the base of the toy that's still inside you. She draws it part way out, then presses in, and basically just fucks you, slow and steady, with it, until you press the whole length of your body against the table and shudder and come with the most pitiful cry you've ever heard. 

"I'm done. I'm done," you pant, "ok?"

Root pulls out and that's the worst. But then she hovers over you, swipes your sweaty hair off your back and kisses your shoulder. She runs her hands up and down your arms. Her breasts press into your back and her warmth sinks into you.

"You're done. You were -such- a good girl tonight, Sameen."

"mmm" you say in sort of a sob-hiccup-moan, "thanks."

Root doesn't say anything more. By some miracle you lean on each other and make it into the bathroom, where you have the fastest and most necessary shower two people can possibly have together. By some other miracle, you make it into the bedroom, where you collapse in a sore, sated mess. 

Root insists on antiseptic and soothing salve and bandaids for the cuts and scratches and you endure her gentle, maternal petting and patching-up. Mostly because you are too spent to move or protest.

You're almost too tired to do anything about it when, moments after the light clicks off, you hear the wet smacking sound of Root fingering herself next to you. Then you remember that you had a lot more orgasms than she did. 

"Are you fucking yourself right now?"

"I didn't think you'd mind." Root chuckles, "or be awake long enough to notice."

"Wait," you plead, rolling over and propping yourself up on another pillow, "I wanna watch" 

You open one arm and Root wiggles over to you. She smushes herself against your body and smiles as your hand comes to rest on the side of her breast.

"Good view?" She asks.

"Yeah."

Root lets you tease her breasts and pull her in close as she slips her fingers down her body; you watch and listen in fascination as she makes herself come. It feels so good, to lay there and smell her hair and gaze down the slope of her nose, the angles and curves of her body, while she pleases herself. 

When you first started sleeping together, you realized Root was a hardcore masturbator. Any time she thought she was alone for half a minute, her hand would disappear beneath her waistband and her eyes would go all glassy. Especially if the machine was talking to her. You also realized watching her do it was like reading a hacker manual on how to get her off. 

You watch now in silence as Root trembles a second time, her ring finger running long ovals along her clit. You slide warm kisses along the side of her neck, under her chin, to the curve of her ear, wherever you can reach. 

Root turns in and kisses you hard, her hips bucking up into her palm as she swipes her tongue along yours. She shudders hard and makes a happy little humming noise, pulling away from you almost immediately after. 

"Mmm, night, Sameen."

"Night, Root." 

You don't feel the need to say "stay" because after the fucking you just did you know you both need some space to breathe through the aftershocks of so much intimacy. Root is close by. You can hear her breathing, you can smell her, you can feel her weight dipping the mattress. You don't need to be touching each other to feel secure. You flop onto your stomach and smile into your pillow as sleep creeps up on you. You don't have many recognizable emotions, but you guess what you feel now, this fullness of the chest, this tingling behind the knees, this desire to not be anywhere else, ever... you guess that's gratitude.

You decide maybe it wouldn't kill you to reassess your no cats policy. 


	13. frequency

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> no sex here, just puns and lube jokes and luuuuurve. guest appearance by Gen.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> final chapter. short epilogue to follow.

You walk by an electric appliance store sometime in February; you watch as a couple of straight white people have a sappy first kiss over and over on a twenty second loop on screens of various sizes and resolutions.

"Do you think the machine has any footage of us, y'know, kissing?" you ask Root-- just a bit apprehensively because that machine is probably a total pervert-- before you realize.

Yes, yes the machine has footage of one kiss, at least, the death kiss on the stock exchange.

Root twitches a little.

She looks down at you and scrunches her nose.

"Why, you want to relive some of our steamier moments?"

"Psh. More like a gag reel probably."

Root puffs out a little cloud of breath. 

"I hate rom coms," she confides, waving at the screens, "love doesn't look anything like that."

You walk half a block to your favorite sex shop. In the window, a mannequin in a gimp suit stands next to a stuffed torso in a corset and a rack of somewhat benign floggers.

"Love looks like that," Root says, pointing at the neon "LUBE NOOB? NO FAIL, TRY A TUBE [ON SALE]" sign.

"Bright and vague?" you ask ask you open the door for her and snag a basket. "Poorly rhymed?"

"Enticing and guaranteed to slick up your hard to reach places."

She drops three bottles of the good stuff in the basket while you get drawn in by the new line of ball gags.

"Sales tax." Root concludes, handing over a few bills as you grab the simple black bag full of goodies for later. 

"Love is paying sales tax... you have to believe it's going toward something good."

"Fuck the state of New York," you grumble. eight percent on the dollar your ass.

"I'd rather fuck you," Root whispers in your ear as you leave and descend, together, into the nearest muggy subway station.

You think about Root and various your conversations and not-conversations about feelings a lot- as you work, as you exercise, while watching Root sleep, during sex, in the shower, while cooking... Is Root right? Is love really just an act of intentionally letting your lives grow together, like the roots of trees overlapping and entwining? Is that simple? Why not? Why shouldn't it be? Everything else in life can be such a headache. 

Even on those rare occasions when you fight with Root- loud, slamming, volatile arguments or cold, distant, passive aggressive freeze-outs, it makes you uncomfortable, but you know in the end that you'll still have each other. She'll still come back to you, you'll still be there for her. You'll talk it out, or fuck it out, or whatever. 

Because you promised. You didn't shoot center mass, all those years ago in that empty warehouse- and though you didn't know it at the time, it was a promise to give her a chance. You trusted her with your body and that was a promise. You made her a key to your apartment and that was a promise. You kissed her and ran into gunfire and that was a promise. You held her while she cried into your skin and that was a promise. 

You turn down offers from hot strangers in bars, from flirtatious numbers, and from your underworld connections, and every time, it's a promise to Root. Root, who waited beside you and for you, night after night, when you were healing inside and out from the poison of Samaritan... and that was a promise too. She sacrificed her version of god to find you and that was another promise. 

You've pledged so much to each other, without ever saying a word about it. 

Leaving her isn't a part of your reality anymore. Root is too important, too much a part of you, an integral pillar of what makes your life your life. You wonder sometimes if Root will change her mind and decide she wants the kind of person who can bring her a soft and fragrant bouquet of delicate, complex emotions. But feelings, like flowers, can whither and die. You know that and she knows that. You like to think that what you and Root have is more than feelings. Feelings are for stupid people- or the intelligent, but unforgivably sincere, like John. What you and Root have... it's like gunpowder: light, breezy, and a little acrid, but so explosive, laced with so much kinetic potential. 

Root is your girlfriend; you've learned to accept that, and even grown to like it. But Root's more than your girlfriend. She's your friend, your roommate, your (playful) nemesis, your... you don't really know what to call her. What you do know is that Root makes sense in your life, like a new word, learned and assumed into your vocabulary. These days, you can't quite articulate who you are without her.

Explaining your relationship with Root to Gen is impossible, though. 

Gen's school gets mold so she stays with Harold for a spring break, when she's about sixteen, which means really, she stays with you. You and Root. Because apparently the sociopath and the psychotic reformed killer for hire are the best match for a teenager with espionage ambitions and a penchant for planting bugs and trackers on everyone in her path.

You never much liked or wanted kids of your own. But Gen's not a kid, not like other kids. She's more like you were as a teenager- curious, stubborn, violent, brilliant, and maybe a lot more unabashedly nerdy. Gen makes you feel that insistent, protective instinct. Like Root does, but more--- maternal probably isn't the right word, but something like it. 

Root is much less interested in Gen's wellbeing.

"Where's she going to sleep?" Root asks, when you inform her of the upcoming arrangement.

"We have a spare room."

"Sameen. She can't sleep in there."

"Why not? 'Ts right across from the bathroom"

"It's full of bondage equipment! She'll be shocked, or traumatized or, worse, she'll break something."

"We can put all that stuff in our room for a couple nights." 

Root sighs, but a week later you go together to pick Gen up from Grand Central.

"Is she your girlfriend?" Gen demands, after Root flitters away on some team business.

At first you don't reply.

"It's ok," Gen says, "I know about sex."

"I hope you're being careful. Condoms and stuff." You pinch the bridge of your nose, suddenly feeling a headache coming on because there is NO manual for this kind of stuff, anywhere.

"Ew! Shaw! grosssss! I'm not HAVING sex. I just you know... know what it is. We had a class. I know about all the different sexualities and how gender is a construct and how to have a healthy relationship."

"Oh." She sounds a little bit like a textbook, maybe she'll let you read the section on healthy relationships.

"And Root's totally the kind of person you should be having sex with!"

"What? Why?"

"She's just the right amount taller than you that you look cute together, and you stare at each others' butts when you think nobody's looking, like cats or dogs do. So yeah, you guys are probably having sex and if you are then maybe you're girlfriends... But you don't have matching charm bracelets. My friend Dana and her girlfriend have matching charm bracelets, with a dolphin charm on them. You should get on that."

"Root and me. We're not... I-- well, we do, a lot, but... I mean, it's about a lot more than... and there's guns and sometimes sandwiches- but also, it's about when you do laundry with someone-"

Your explanation makes Gen get all glassy-eyed and confused. Heck, your explanation makes you get all glassy-eyed and confused.

"Uh... Girlfriends, yeah, Gen. Something like that" you finally say and then shut up. Because for a while now 'girlfriend' hasn't felt like quite the right word to encapsulate Root. It's like it's too thin or insubstantial or something. 

You decide you'll know the right word when you know it, and not before.

Like most good things in your life, it happens accidentally. And with appropriate violence.

There's a building with a bomb in it and a red wire you thought you'd cut. There's a hasty exit interrupted by a cloud of fire and a terrible explosion that shakes the ground and makes you feel like your knees are going to jackhammer up through your teeth. You get flung up in the air and your gun hand, still wrapped around your pistol, collides with Root's face. You land in a heap on the ground, mouths full of ash, hair blanketed in powdered drywall and brick dust.

You don't wait for the tremors to rock out of your body. You extend a wavering hand to Root, pull her into an awkward, semi-tangled sitting position. Her cheek is spilt open. A bleary trail of blood rolls down to her neck, curling in a dark path on her ash-dusted skin.

"You ok?" You ask, palpating various spots on her face. She winces, tears joining the chorus of liquid running down her face.

"Peachy, let's get out of here."

You get and you get fast, well as fast as you can with double concussions and what feels like a sprained ankle.

Your getaway car, mercifully, is in tact. It is also, less mercilessly, an entire block away from the explosion. And of course your ear bud got knocked out of your ear in the blast and your head is buzzing too loudly to even think about looking for a phone to call Fusco and make him come get you.

"Holy shit, snowball... dark-snowball, what happened to you guys?" asks Fusco, who missed the action to stand guard over half a dozen sandwiches (yours) in the getaway car. 

"Hey, who are you calling dark snowball?" 

You eyeball Fusco and grab a sandwich, needing the comfort of food after seeing Root all knocked out and ashen like that. You're thankful that none of your teeth got shaken loose.

Fusco jerks his head toward Root, as if it's obvious that all darkness is to be associated with her. How progressively not-racist of him. 

Root smiles her creepiest smile at him, the saccharine one that reaches all the way back to her molars almost. It's so hot when she does that. The smile re-opens her split skin and a fresh trickle of blood crawls down her cheek. She mops at it with her sleeve. You can practically feel Fusco cringing. 

You smirk around your mouthful of pastrami, grab a first aid packet, and climb into the back, beckoning for Root to follow. If she's going to bleed everywhere, you figure you should be close by with a sanitized towel to mop her up.

Root digs around in the depths of her satchel.

"I'm having a vicodin," she chirps, like it's her coffee order.

"Oh please," you scoff, even though after gently wiping the blood and grime off her face, you can see extensive bruising, and you can tell that she's going to need a butterfly bandaid at the very least. 

"It's just a little cut 'n' bruise job, probably won't even scar. You're lucky I wasn't wearing a ring. That would have done some real damage."

It's a thought that becomes words, bursting out and expanding into the musty air between you, before you can stop yourself, before you can consider its implications. The words crystalize into a reality.

No taking it back, you think, we don't lie to each other.

Root's forehead crinkles in confusion. "What would you be wearing a ring for? We weren't under cover."

You stare at her blankly. You don't say anything. It takes a minute, but finally her eyes widen in comprehension. 

Root ducks her head and smiles into her lap, like she thinks you can't see. You take her chin, gently, and lift her face up, inspecting her cheek closely.

"I'm gonna take such good care of you," you warn, then clear your throat because her eyes get shiny and teary-looking, "as soon as we get to running water, um, clean this mess up."

"well don't take too much care of me, doctor, my girlfriend might get jealous."

You angle your head and study her. You press your lips together in a thin line, working up the right word to say, and the willpower to say it.

"Partner," you finally pronounce, quiet, but certain. 

Root nods. Nothing more needs saying.

"Now.... take your damn pill. I don't want you fainting during stitches."

"I have to have stitches?"

"You will if you keep smiling like that, it's opening the cut."

Weeks later, it's sub-zero and you're sitting in a freezing cold van, staking out some number's house in the middle of the night in Hoboken. A car nearby backfires and the sound cracks open the whole still, cold night. The newb you and Reese are training nearly jumps out of her skin. 

You remember your first time in a fox hole, before you knew the difference between a car backfiring and actual gunfire. You were one of six freshly minted Marines, dropped without much ado onto a ground mission in Kuwait. You had a perpetual mouthful of sand and your main responsibility that day was to radio your changing location back to command. You tinkered with the radio receiver, clogged with grit, and extended the antenna all the way, you tried hundreds of frequencies. All you got, each time, was a blast of static. You remember pulling out your gun and pointing it at the radio.

"You better work, or I'm shooting your ass." You'd said. (Totally against protocol)

You had twisted the dial one final time and finally heard the clear, coherent sounds of human voices. The relief you felt then, at finally finding the right frequency, you realize, is the relief you've felt in varying degrees almost every day since Root forced herself into your life. The relief you feel every time she talks you out of your own head, tells you to be patient, to give yourself time, to stop pressuring yourself. Root is your frequency-- your annoying, insinuating, demanding, taunting, disturbingly-usually-right-about-you frequency. You know. Without her, your world would revert back to the angry static blare it once was. 

That must be what love feels like, you decide. Finding someone who's your frequency.

This realization strikes you hard. You curl your mouth around it and remain even more taciturn than Reese the entire night. You don't say a word until you clatter into your apartment at two in the morning, exhausted to your bones, half numb from the cold, but eager to share your epiphany with Root.

Root is asleep on the couch, her hair tangled over her face and her limbs painstakingly folded up under the thinnest, smallest excuse for a blanket you have ever seen. She's clutching some zipties and your new favorite strap-on close to her body like they are pirate treasures. A bottle of lube lies, mercifully still sealed shut, on the floor. You're guessing surprise sex was the plan of the night, before she fell asleep. Her laptop sits closed on the coffee table in front of her. You pick it up and lock it in the safe. You debate picking Root up and carrying her to bed, but you figure the disruption would probably wake her up anyways.

Instead, you sit on the couch, in the small hollow of space near the middle of her body. You gently pry the sex toy and restraints out of her grasp and drop them onto the table. You run your fingers through her soft, dark hair, tucking a strand behind her ear. She stirs in her sleep. Finally you lose patience and tap a couple fingers against her cheek, almost gently, until she wakes up. She starts and her eyes are wild for a second before she realizes it's you. Then she gives you her wide, sleep-drunk smile.

You raise an eyebrow.

"Was waiting up for you," she mumbles, before staggering to bed. 

You follow, kicking your clothes off and shimmying under the sheets on your side. But then you have to roll over, twice, because it's a bigass bed and Root's all the way on the other side.

Finally your nose collides with her shoulder.

"Your face is freezing," she complains,

"Blame Fusco for not getting the truck's heater fixed, like he was supposed to."

"Want me to warm you up?" her voice dips into its playful and seductive range.

"You can barely keep your eyes open."

Root jabs a hand out from under the covers and wiggles her fingers, "don't need my eyes for THAT."

You press your cold cheek harder into the back of her neck. 

"No, but..." you say, but it's muffled by her skin.

You shift a little against her, the weight of what you want to say itching away at you.

She flips over to face you, "what?" 

"I think, um..."

"Yes?"

You take in her sleep-rumpled face, messy, tangled hair, her patient but exhausted eyes. This woman is a deer and a hurricane and an electrical storm. She's silence and darkness and violence and light. She's nobody's, and she's yours...

You lean in close to her good ear, hand tight on her shoulder;

"It's just, you know... I'd do anything for you, Root."

It's as close as you can get to it, but it's enough.

Root presses a warm kiss to your cold nose. She sighs into your hair, "oh, Sameen, I love you too."

...

The next morning there are pancakes. Root executes her evil plot involving the strap-on and the zipties. She doesn't mention your late night confession. Instead, she kisses you, deeply, as she's fastening your hands to the headboard and whispers, "I stole these from Harold." 

You roll your eyes. "Whatever. Remember our second date? You stole -me- from Harold. That was a lot more impressive."

"So you're admitting it was a date?"

"Sure, Root."

"And if that was a date, then what's us living together?" the playfulness is still there, but you sense something softer and perhaps more vulnerable in her question.

Her gaze tracks across your face as you formulate an answer. It's an idea that feels rusty and creaky. You don't remember the last time you called anything or anyone in your life what you now call your shared existence with Root.

"Home. We... you and I... we're partners, you know, and when we're together, this is home."

Root's eyes widen. She beams at you.

"Does this mean we can get a-"

"No. You're gonna have to do better than pancakes and light bondage if you want me to agree to a cat."


	14. epilogue

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The question of the cat is answered.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know it took me a long time to post this epilogue, but honestly, I just didn't want this fic to be over. Thanks to everyone for reading, commenting, liking, and encouraging me to continue with this fic. It's really special to me.

Once, when you were five or six, you found a baby bird on the ground in the playground of one of the military bases where your father was stationed. You remember expecting it to be dead, and not really being sad about that. Curious, but not sad. But when you picked up it's small, warm body, you found it wasn't dead. Stunned maybe, but breathing and blinking and alive.

You cupped it in your hands and carefully, carefully walked the half a mile back to your parents' bungalow. 

That night, instead of watching the game, your father taught you how to feed the bird with an eye-dropper and keep it warm in a little box lined with an old t-shirt. You kept it for one night. You couldn't sleep. You had to get up and check on the bird. You had to gently graze the top of its tiny, baby head with your finger. The bird didn't mind. 

The next day, you walked back to the park. You carried the sturdy box with the little bird safe inside it; even then you could tell it felt... good, to be entrusted with the protection of another life. Your father carried a ladder. He poked around in four or five trees before he found the nest, all in tact and way high up. 

"Little guy's lucky to be alive, after a fall like that."

He gingerly placed the baby bird back in the nest. 

"I left him with his brothers," he told you, his warm brown eyes crinkling at the corners as he folded up the ladder.

You could see the mother bird circling and screaming overhead.

"Will the mother smell you on them and kill them?" you asked.

"That's a myth," your father had said, patting your head despite your efforts to squirm away. 

You never felt anything as delicate and soft as that baby bird, and you never thought about it again, until you touched Root.

Sometimes, when Root feels like being gentle, or she's upset by something you don't understand, you softly pet the top of her head. Like she's your baby bird. Fragile and soft. You gently, gently skim your fingers over her hair. Wondering if the machine will some day somehow detect traces of your code on Root and try to kill her for it, or if that, too, is a myth. 

You know, on a practical level, that things like fragility and softness and delicacy are affectations for Root, at least some of the time. That underneath that baby bird softness, there's a hungry tiger, wide-eyed and watching, always ready to spring with immense power into destruction. You have held her thin wrists and measured the light staccato of her pulse. You have felt her claws and teeth rip through you, in the best ways and the worst. Still, you stroke her soft, naturally robin-brown hair and you smile at how goddamn dangerous she is.

(You're not tempted by the fantasy of a Root who would die without you, but you do acknowledge the reality of a Root who might refuse to live without you). 

Root lets you pet her, sometimes, lets you explore her body with perfunctory curiosity. She doesn't cringe when you say things or do things or want things that other people might find weird. And when you're lying in bed at night and you ask Root if she ever fantasizes about dying, because you still worry sometimes that she might, she runs her big toe up and down your shin and says "I haven't for a long time."

Root is sometime fragile, but always a sadist. You knew the last part within ten minutes of your first meeting, when the kiss of a hot iron against your collarbone and the bright excitement in Root's eyes tempted your body to leap to all kinds of treacherous, wet, hot, conclusions. Root is a sadist, with limits. She doesn't like children, but she wouldn't go out of her way to hurt them. She likes animals, although not as much as you like animals, and she has a penchant for cats. (You find this feline affinity almost as reprehensible as her soymilk-drinking lifestyle. You didn't almost die for her so she could drink synthetic cow and moon over scratchy, bitey little fluffballs). Root is casually sadistic toward most people. Whether it's smirking at some new chaos she's managed to incite, or unnecessarily stabbing some perp in the hand with a screwdriver, over and over, Root likes watching people suffer. In much the same way, you imagine, your mother maybe used to worry that you might one day like to see people suffer.

You are not a sadist, though. You like violence. You like a good fight. Or a dirty fight, but only if you win it. You like getting answers and protecting lives- all the weak people, clueless people, innocent people, they make your job and your life necessary. You like knowing you're somehow fitting yourself into the right side of the equation of life, the justice side, the protecting side, the good side. 

Root looks at weak, clueless, innocent people like your third grade homeroom teacher looked at the shadow box of perfectly preserved beetles you brought in for show and tell once. She wrinkles her nose and you know she kind of wants to stomp them into nothing. 

You are a masochist. You enjoy bearing the brunt of Root's misanthropy. Although, in your case, and only in your case, her cruelties are tender, the pain she inflicts is pleasure, the path of chaos and ruin she leaves is temporary, and often made of bite marks or careful knife cuts, and the desire to crush you like a bug is more a sexual metaphor than an actual homicidal tendency. 

Root is a sadist who likes to wind you up and torment your friends. She loves a good emotional manipulation. Especially when the victim is Reese or Harold. She loves to watch "the boys" squirm like worms on the end of a needle. And because she realizes early on how much it amuses you to watch her play evil games with your friends, Root makes you watch and sometimes, unwillingly and unwittingly, participate. Root is perfectly content to let Harold and Reese think that every single time they call you or pop into your various bases of operations, they're interrupting some kind of elaborate debauchery. In fact, she goes out of her way to make them think it. And it takes you an embarrassingly long time to catch on. 

You're not having sex on a Wednesday afternoon in the subway station. You and Root can go for vast quantities of time without having sex. A whole week, even. You're just rounding the fourteenth hour in between orgasms and not even thinking about it that much because you're strategizing a mission, when Root very deliberately "accidentally" knocks your coffee cup onto the floor.

"Oops," she says flatly, as you scramble to mop tepid coffee off your boots and her boots and and the floor (because fucking cockroaches are a very real problem). 

When you poke your head back up over the desk, less than a minute later, you see a mortified Finch face not ten feet away, jaw slack, cheeks and ears pink, eyes bright, all the signs of embarrassment broadcasting from his body. Root's hair has mysteriously become a complete trainwreck and her shirt is unbuttoned and she's licking her fingers and when - and how- did her skin get all flushed like that? You were on the ground for less than fifty seconds...

"Am I interrupting something?" Finch whimpers.

Root sighs boredly. "Only the political statement that is the female orgasm, Harold. What can we help you with?"

Harold gurgles something about source codes and wiring.

You watch in mute amusement as Root prances over to Harold's computer island and makes a point of touching every single one of his keyboards. In horror, he fumbles for disinfectant wipes and follows her around trying to eradicate whatever it is he thinks she's contaminating his precious keyboards with. 

Harold takes a deep, deep breath, and he and Root start talking nerd; you discreetly dispose of the coffee cup and decide maybe you and Bear could use a walk. To escape the crazy.

Bear, it turns out, is a traitor to your quest for peace. He sees something moving under a dumpster and refuses to budge, even when you snap at him in Dutch. Even when you swear in German.

"I said, no" you repeat firmly, cursing yourself for not learning more angry-sailor Dutch.

"No. Nein. Non. Nyet."

You curse Root and Harold, too, for driving you out of the subway. Especially Root. Even though it was pretty funny, seeing Harold all prudish and shocked.

You hear a low whine.

"I'm not doing this," you warn.

Bear doesn't respond, just sits down and stares balefully at the dumpster. Somehow you feel like you've lost control of the situation.

You sigh and drop to an easy squat. "Ok, we'll lure it out, make sure it's ok. You can kill it if it's a rat. But you CAN'T keep it." 

Bear tilts his head at you. 

You order him to one end of the dumpster and gingerly swipe a piece of cardboard under the other. A small, ratty ball of black fluff, a kitten by the looks of it, comes out, claws and teeth digging into the cardboard. You glance around helplessly, what are you going to do with this creature? An old, only slightly damp, shoebox resting on top of the dumpster will have to do. You plop it on top of the kitten, earning some irascible hissing and clawing noises. The box closes easily and you tuck it under one arm. 

"Kommen," you tell Bear. He trots up and takes a good sniff at the box, falling into an easy stride beside you.

"Not one word of this to Root."

It's not hard to find a good vet in the city, but a check-up and shots are expensive. The kitten is basically feral. It screams at you for a long time, making grumbly little squeaking sounds and scrabbling at the side of the box.

"Sorry," you whisper into the box every couple minutes, until the vet takes it out and bravely weighs and examines it.

"She either got separated from her litter, or her family died," the vet says, "she's still too young to feed herself. Lucky you found her."

"I didn't. I mean, my friend's dog did, he um, he likes cats I guess,"

"Well some dogs do," the vet smiles and launches into a prescription of warmth and physical contact and a few weeks of feeding it- her, with an eyedropper and some special kitten formula until she can eat solid foods. 

"I wasn't planning on keeping her," you say, "I work hellish hours and sometimes I'm out of town for long periods of time."

Not to mention a pet is a huge liability. Not to mention Root. 

The vet nods sympathetically and hands you some brochures on no-kill shelters. 

And that is how you end up in your apartment with an empty shoebox on your coffee table and a stinky, angry kitten hiding under your couch. You hover, almost more interested in a sustaining bag of chips than the animal drama unfolding in front of you. Bear lies uselessly on the floor, his nose shoved as far as it will go under the couch. Bear huffs at the kitten, it squawls at him. 

"You'll get scratched," you warn him, but he seems to think it's worth a scratch to be closer to the kitten.

You shake the chips bag near his head.

"Seriously, Bear, she'll tear your face off."

Bear whines. He thumps his tail.

"You know it's not for keeps, right? We're not cat people. I mean Root is because there's something wrong with her, but the rest of us, we don't do cats. And if anyone ever got our location, you know they would fuck up our animals to hurt us, right? Because people are evil." 

Bear whines and snuffles his nose to the right. There's a pathetic little hiss and Bear jumps back with a teeny, tiny scratch on his nose. He backs away from the couch, but five minutes later he begins inching his way back, on his belly like a soldier.

"You're showing a disappointing lack of judgment," you say around a mouthful of chips. 

Root chooses that moment to arrive, her key turning over in the lock is enough to distract you, but not Bear.

"This is all your fault," you hiss at Bear, then concede, "but I still love you."

"Hey Sweetie, you hungry?" Root calls, and you hear the rustle of plastic bags and the clatter of her keys on the counter. In seconds, the smell of damn good Chinese food fills the apartment.

"I'm always hungry," you remind her, abandoning the couch and making your way to the kitchen where Root is plating food as fast as she can. 

"We have a dinner guest."

"Bear is eating dog food, Sameen, I don't want to hear another lecture from Harold about his GI issues and how your penchant for feeding him people food may have caused them."

You scratch the back of your neck. "Yeah, um, not that, exactly. Bear kind of picked something up on the way home and uh well it was too small to bring to a shelter so-"

The kitten screeches and scratches Bear again, he howls, and the damn thing bolts from under the couch to the bedroom, where you assume it lodges under your bed.

"Dammit," 

Root squeaks, "Shaw! what was that?"

"According to the vet it's a kitten. It's six weeks old and needs to be fed with an eyedropper. It smells awful. But yknow, it doesn't have rabies or anything."

Root melts. Her eyes and her mouth and her limbs just get all... soft and dopey. Like a marshmallow going up in flames. Weak. 

"Oh, Sameen, how darling!" 

She dashes into the bedroom and soon it's her and Bear, lying on the floor, staring at the kitten under the bed. They're both on their bellies, faces pressed as close to the bed as they can go. Not a bad angle for Root's butt, especially in those dark skinny jeans. 

Root reaches one hand toward the bed.

"I love cats," She coos, tapping a staccato on the floorboards with her black-tipped fingers "obviously. I am dating you." 

"I'm nothing like a cat," you practically choke on the comparison.

"Mm, yes you are," Root answers, barely paying attention to you, eyes glued at the six inch gap between the bottom of the bed and the floor.

"I... I..."

"Aloof, self-sufficient, immensely resourceful, quietly reflective, occasionally sullen, nocturnal, you survive on red meat... extremely proficient with your tongue.... known to scratch, and bite.... Yeah, you're not a bit feline."

"Hey! If anything, I'm like a dog!"

"Uh uh. Dogs are fundamentally stupid, that's why so many people like them."

You glance quickly at Bear. He doesn't look like he registered the slander. You scowl anyway. 

"Dogs are not-"

"Bear might speak two languages, but he still eats shoes, poop, and random animal vomit." Root whispers, delicately, "And he licks his crotch."

"Like you wouldn't do that if you were flexible enough."

"I don't need to lick my crotch," Root swipes one finger under the bed with no success. "I have you for that."

"Ugh, whatever."

"What should we call it? Him, her? Did the vet say what sex it is?"

"She, her. We really can't keep her, so she doesn't need a name."

"Of course we're keeping her. You wouldn't have brought her home otherwise."

"That's not- I didn't-"

Root looks up at you with her "I know everything" face. Her eyebrows are beyond cocky. God she's hot when she acts like she has you all figured out.

"We're not keeping her."

"Ok, sure, Sameen. Come on, Small," She somehow coaxes the kitten over and into her palm and brings it to her chest, wrinkling her face up the moment the kitten is within smelling distance, "ohh you need a bath."

"Good luck with that," you head back to the beckoning aromas of dinner, "there's some animal-friendly wet wipes in the bathroom."

You don't need to look back to know a delighted smile is probably cracking its way across Root's face.

The kitten spends the night on a folded up t shirt (Root's) and a gym towel (yours) in the shoe box. Root persuades her to take droplets of warm kitten formula from a clean eye dropper. You resolutely refuse to be drawn in by Root, fawning and maternal over a couple ounces of cat. Even if the crinkles around her eyes when she coos at the kitten are a whole new world of sexy, and it's kind of mesmerizing to watch her long, pale fingers stroking the kitten's dark fur..

"Like I said," you remind Bear when you return him to Harold, "it's only for a few days. 'Til she's strong enough to eat real cat food. Then she goes to a shelter."

You say that every night for six weeks. Until it becomes obvious that the kitten is not going anywhere. A cat bed and a litter box and little cat dishes show up. You're pretty sure you see Root nudge a carpeted scratch post into the spare room one night. And you definitely notice the new presence on your bed every night, pressed up against Root's back, right where maybe you'd like to-- keep a spare gun or something, just in case.

The kitten likes you, even though you don't make any real efforts to get to know her. But Root, damn, she loves Root. She follows her everywhere. She yowls when she leaves and becomes depressed if she spends nights away on machine business. She even lets Root feed her flecks of tofu and other perverse vegetarian offerings, which is just wrong.

"Cats shouldn't eat apples," you inform Root. 

"She likes them, don't you, Smol?"

"No, stop." You put your foot down, firmly, and Root has no choice but to pay attention. "I can hear it in your voice that when you're saying it, you're saying it 'Smol' and not 'Small' and I hate it. If we're going to keep this... squatter... then she's getting a real name, not some stupid internet version of an adjective."

Root bites her lip and grins at you.

"You're so hot when you're being grammatically correct," she breathes.

"Root."

"Mm?"

"You always think I'm hot. Now pick a name for that damn cat."

"But she already answers to Smol. Don't you, Smol?"

Smol picks her head up from Root's lap and makes a peeping noise wholly unnatural to a cat.

"I think she's broken."

"She's not broken, she's an alto."

You roll your eyes. Now on top of having a cyber god plugged into her skull to talk to, Root also has a cat to conspire with. A cat roughly the size of a coconut.And you're supposed to be the mental one.

"That's not even a name."

Root shrugs, "neither is Root, really, but it works."

"Ugh. I guess we should get her chipped and stuff."

"She has a vet appointment on Monday."

"So this arrangement is for keeps then?"

"Sameen," Root says firmly, running one finger across the kitten's raggy little ears, "you'd never have brought a cat into this apartment if some part of you wasn't ready to keep it. Don't argue. You know I'm right."

"Whatever." You leave Root and Small and go look for that beer you know Root got you as a bribe.

You guess sharing your living space with an animal isn't the worst thing The cat makes Root happy, for some reason. Even if she does look really extra gay on the days you come home to find her wearing her librarian glasses, hunched over a desktop, with Small curled up in her lap. 

"You're embodying like ten different stereotypes right now," you scold. 

"So? I'm not the one with all the seasons of Buffy in immaculate condition hidden in my weapons locker."

"Seasons one through three of the L Word stored in a file labeled "boring coding stuff" on your hard drive."

"You hacked my hard drive? Aw, Sweetie..." Root sounds besotted. Gag.

"I was looking for... something."

"mmmhmm, was it pictures of David Boreanaz shirtless?"

"Shut up, Root. I'm not the one wearing a flannel shirt and a cat right now."

"Mmm, but you are the one with an auspicious collection of black oxfords."

"Lots of people wear those."

"Lesbians and caterers."

"Shut up."

Root dislodges Small and slinks over to you.

"Aw, Sameen, I know you reject labels. I think that's so hot." 

She kisses you firmly, demonstrating just how hot she thinks it is.

"But you have to admit," Root whispers into your ear, "it's kinda gay, too." 

She turns and trips off the bedroom and you follow, knowing full well that you're both about to do something decidedly gay. or lesbian, or whatever, fuck it, who cares.

You lock the bedroom door behind you, though. Small is banned from your private conversations. 

"So I guess we have a cat together." You take your pants off.

"I guess we do." Root pulls her shirt off, no bra today. Nice.

You take a moment to study Root as she advances on you. She's finally reached a healthy weight again, now that she eats real people food sometimes and spars with you and has to actually leave the apartment to furnish her hoard of cat supplies. Maybe having a cat will be good for her, pull her out of her world of screens and wires from time to time. 

You pull a few black cat hairs off Root's pants, though, and roll your eyes.

"I knew getting mixed up with you would lead to trouble." 

Root leans on you as she tugs her skinny jeans off. The leaning turns into pushing you down onto the bed and pouncing on you.

You put up a half-hearted fight and let Root pin you. She drags your hands up to the headboard (this one is made of metal) and cuffs you into place. 

As Root starts clipping your ankles into her brand new spreader bar, she chuckles to herself and then stares up at you, laughing so hard hard you have to ask what's wrong.

"Admit it, Shaw," she grins, wide and feral, "you do like a little pussy."

 

You shake your head. You are about to deliver a scathing retort when the cat scratches at the door.

"Not right now, Smol" Root calls, "Mommies are fucking." 

Root sinks her teeth into your thigh and you sigh, sinking back into the bed and letting her take you on a wild ride. Happiness, for you, really, is anywhere Root is and anything Root is doing. Even if it involves an annoying cat.


End file.
